Donne & Herbert ~ religious, ordained ministers.
They show a Puritan influence: plain English terms.

John Donne - went to prison b/c he married his boss's daughter who was a minor. Drifted around afterwards. Supported writing through patronage. Greatest metaphysical poet.

The Ecstasy - comes from ek stasis - Greek for " Stand (stasis) outside (ek) ."
I put in a long definition of ecstasy, but there are 2 basic meanings present in the text.

  1. Used by mystical writers as the technical name for the state of rapture in which the body was supposed to become incapable of sensation, while the soul was engaged in the contemplation of divine things. Now only Hist. or allusive. To be beside oneself - Donne literalizes this by having the souls leave the body.
  2. An exalted state of feeling which engrosses the mind to the exclusion of thought;

  3. rapture, transport.
b. The state of trance supposed to be a concomitant of prophetic inspiration; hence,
Poetic frenzy or rapture. Now with some notion of 4.

You're transported outside of yourself

Every 4 lines = 1 stanza. 1st stanza

Where, like a pillow on a bed,
    A Pregnant banke swel'd up, to rest
The violets reclining head,
    Sat we two, one anothers best.
Lines 2-3 ~ enjambment (where a sentence carries over from one line to the next without any punctuation.

"Pregnant banke swel'd up"= they're sitting on a small hill or on a bank by a stream.  The fact that its swelling makes him think of it as pregnant.  We begin to see what's on his mind.

 2nd ~

Our hands were firmly cimented
    With a fast balme, which thence did spring,
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thred
    Our eyes, upon one double string;
"cimented / With a fast balme = hands are sweaty
"eye-beams twisted" = staring @ each other, into each other's eyes.
So to'entergraft our hands, as yet
    Was all the meanes to make us one,
And pictures in our eyes to get
    Was all our propagation.
Lines 11-12 ~ "Pictures" has two meanings here
  1. Seeing his picture or image in her eyes & vice versa.
  2. Seeing their picture in their offspring, who would look like them.
no propagation = not having sex yet; just beginning relationship. There are no children yet, just the images in each others eyes.

13-20  - souls are outside their bodies negotiating like 2 armies.  Their bodies meanwhile are motionless.

21-24  Only the person refined by love could understand the language they speak to each other in those silent moments.

31-32 - sex involves motion, so what they have is something else, an unmoving emotion.  That which moves is generally inferior to that which doesn't.  God is sometimes called "The Unmoved Mover," making him superior to everything.

Trying to decide what to do ~ love or not ~ lasts all day.


But O alas, so long, so farre
    Our bodies why doe wee forbeare?
They'are ours, though they'are not wee; Wee are
    The intelligences, they the spheare.

We owe them thankes, because they thus,
    Did us, to us, at first convay,
Yeelded their forces, sense, to us,
    Nor are drosse to us, but allay.

On man heavens influence workes not so,
    But that it first imprints the ayre,
Soe soule into the soule may flow,
    Though it to body first repaire.

The poem shifts tone here.  He's tired of "forbearing," of not having sex.  He sees a dual nature of man - body & soul.  My soul is the real "me," but my body is how I interact with the world.

If our souls are to get together, they must do so through our bodies.  IT'S TIME TO INTERACT!0

As our blood labours to beget
    Spirits, as like soules as it can,
Because such fingers need to knit
    That subtle knot, which makes us man:

So must pure lovers soules descend
    T'affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
    Else a great Prince in prison lies.

Can only have new people through sex.  A person's body & spirit are united at conception.

"Great Prince in prison" The soul without the body is unable to interact with the world & therefore in prison.

To'our bodies turne wee then, that so
    Weake men on love reveal'd may looke;
Loves mysteries in soules doe grow,
    But yet the body is his booke.

And if some lover, such as wee,
    Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still marke us, he shall see
    Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.

"To'our bodies turne wee then"  = time to interact!

Love grows in the soul, but is written on the book of the body.

The passerby who was able to understand their communion won't see much difference when they "are to bodies gone."  The image is of one watching while they make love.