Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermai… - John Donne

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind.

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance, hath slain.

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

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorius nothing I did see,
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than a parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who
I bid love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.