"If they be two, they are two so / As stiffe twin compasses are two, / Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if the'other doe."
— Donne, John (1572-1631)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot
Date
1633
Metaphor
"If they be two, they are two so / As stiffe twin compasses are two, / Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if the'other doe."
Metaphor in Context
As virtuous men passe mildly away,
And whisper to the soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no.
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T'were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harmes and feares,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refin'd,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, hands to misse.
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne.
Thy firmnes makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne.
(pp. 163-4, ll. 1-36)
And whisper to the soules, to goe,
Whilst some of their sad friends doe say,
The breath goes now, and some say, no.
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No teare-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
T'were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.
Moving of th'earth brings harmes and feares,
Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love, so much refin'd,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care lesse, eyes, lips, hands to misse.
Our two soules therefore, which are one,
Though I must goe, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to ayery thinnesse beate.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiffe twin compasses are two,
Thy soule the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the'other doe.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth rome,
It leanes, and hearkens after it,
And growes erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th'other foot, obliquely runne.
Thy firmnes makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begunne.
(pp. 163-4, ll. 1-36)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Written in 1611?
See Poems, By J. D.: With Elegies on the Authors Death (London: Printed by M. F. for Iohn Marriot, 1633). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Reading John Donne, ed. John Carey (Oxford: OUP, 1990).
See Poems, By J. D.: With Elegies on the Authors Death (London: Printed by M. F. for Iohn Marriot, 1633). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Reading John Donne, ed. John Carey (Oxford: OUP, 1990).
Date of Entry
08/28/2013
