Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
John DonneRead
Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.
Interpretation
The quote expresses that physical love is tied to presence and cannot endure absence.
In this quote, John Donne reflects on the nature of earthly, physical love, arguing that such love relies heavily on the physical presence of the beloved. He suggests that when lovers are apart, the essence of their connection diminishes, as their love is rooted in sensory experiences and tangible interaction, making absence detrimental to their bond.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a wedding speech to highlight the importance of presence in love.
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies.
Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity
All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damned; alas; why should I be?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
I call not that virginity a virtue, which resideth onely in the bodies integrity; much less if it be with a purpose of perpetually keeping it: for then it is a most inhumane vice. - But I call that Virginity a virtue which is willing and desirous to yield it self upon honest and lawfull terms, when just reason requireth; and until then, is kept with a modest chastity of body and mind.
But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.
I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.
I am not yours, nor lost in you, not lost, although I long to be. Lost as a candle lit at noon, lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still a spirit beautiful and bright, yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light.
A blaze of love and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should last long years.
I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
Bodies count, of course - they count more than we're willing to admit - but we don't fall in love with bodies, we fall in love with each other. We all know that, but the moment we go beyond a catalogue of surface qualities and appearances, words begin to fail us, to crumble apart in mystical confusions and cloudy, unsubstantial metaphors.
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