Love's Progress

The hair a forest is of ambushes,

Of springs, snares, fetters and manacles;

The brow becalms us when 'tis smooth and plain,

And when 'tis wrinkled shipwrecks us again - 

Smooth, 'tis a paradise where we would have

Immortal stay, and wrinkled 'tis our grave.

The nose (like to the first meridian) runs

Not 'twixt an East and West, but 'twixt two suns;

It leaves a cheek, a rosy hemisphere,

On either side, and then directs us where

Upon the Islands Fortunate we fall,

(Not faint Canaries, but Ambrosial)

Her swelling lips; to which when we are come,

We anchor there, and think ourselves at home,

For they seem all: there Sirens' songs, and there

Wise Delphic oracles do fill the ear;

There in a creek where chosen pearls do swell,

The remora, her cleaving tongue doth dwell.

These, and the glorious promontory, her chin,

O'erpassed, and the straight Hellespont between

The Sestos and Abydos of her breasts,

(Not of two lovers, but two loves the nests)

Succeeds a boundless sea, but yet thine eye

Some island moles may scattered there descry;

And sailing towards her India, in that way

Shall at her fair Atlantic navel stay;

Though thence the current be thy pilot made,

Yet ere thou be where thou wouldst be embayed

Thou shalt upon another forest set,

Where many shipwreck and no further get.

When thou art there, consider what this chase

Misspent by thy beginning at the face.

Rather set out below; practice my art.

Some symmetry the foot hath with that part

Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that,

Lovely enough to stop, but not stay at;

Least subject to disguise and change it is - 

Men say the devil never can change his.

It is the emblem that hath figured

Firmness; 'tis the first part that comes to bed.

Civility we see refined; the kiss

Which at the face began, transplanted is,

Since to the hand, since to the imperial knee,

Now at the papal foot delights to be:

If kings think that the nearer way, and do

Rise from the foot, lovers may do so too;

For as free spheres move faster far than can

Birds, whom the air resists, so may that man

Which goes this empty and ethereal way,

Than if at beauty's elements he stay.

Rich nature hath in women wisely made

Two purses, and their mouths aversely laid:

They then which to the lower tribute owe

That way which that exchequer looks must go:

He which doth not, his error is as great

As who by clyster gave the stomach meat.

Poem by John Donne

(Elegy XVIII)

Photo name: Le Matin Parisien

Photo by St-Jr