Of Love and Soul/s: Excerpts from John Donne’s “The Extasie”

Our souls (which to advance their state
Were gone out) hung ‘twixt her and me.

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If any, so by love refined
That the soul’s language understood,
And by good we were grown all mind
Within convenient distance stood

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But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things, they know not what
Love, these mixed souls doth mix again
And makes both one, each and that.

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We then, who are this new soul, know
Of what we are composed and made,
For the atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.

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On man, heaven’s influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air;
So soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.

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Love’s mysteries in souls do grow
But yet the body is his book.

Two Further Donne Quotes

If or two loves be one, or thou and I/Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

That soul that can reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so.

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