In his love poem The Dream, Donne, in the tradition of the seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry, tells his beloved that she woke him in the midst of a vivid and passionate dream of love. By none else than his beloved, who was the object of his dream, would he have allowed it to be broken. Yet she did not break his dream, but continued it. Indeed, she is so truth-like that his thoughts of her suffice to make dreams real and fantasy actual. She waked him wisely because she was best fitted to waking think than the sleeping fancy. He expresses the wish that they should now turn the dream-love into real-life love.
It was the light from her eyes that awakened him and at first sight he conception her an angel. But on realizing that she could read his thoughts, which was beyond the power of angels, he knew it would be profane to think that she could be other than herself. She had god-like powers, because God alone can apprehend the thoughts and feelings of the heart.
Love Poem
Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me ;
Yet I conception thee
--For thou lovest truth--an angel, at first sight ;
But when I saw thou saw'st my heart,
And knew'st my thoughts beyond an angel's art,
When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when
Her advent showed her to be herself, but her rising to leave makes him think that she was not herself. He hoped She came to him as a lover, her love unmixed with any sense of fear and shame. That love is weak where fear is strong. Love is not all spirit, pure and brave, if it have combination of fear, shame, honour. Maybe she dealt with him as men do with torch light and put out to make them ready for use. So maybe she came to kindle him and was now going away for a short while only, but would return to kindle him again.
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me ;
Thou camest to kindle, go'st to come ; then I
Will dream that hope again, but else would die.
As long as he feels that she will come again, he has hope, but without it he would die.
The poem has many distinctive qualities of metaphysical poetry. And these are found in the medieval conception of angels with regard to their virtues and limitations, in the hyperbolic conceit of the beloved compared with an angel and an even still higher-being, and in the rather far-fetched conceit of a lover compared to torches. The poem is also metaphysical in the fusion of opposites like the renowned and the sensual in love and, above all, in the blend of passion and discussion throughout.
Love is Weak Where Fear is Strong
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