| John Donne (1572–1631). The Poems of John Donne. 1896. | | | | Songs and Sonnets | | Love’s Growth |
| | | I SCARCE believe my love to be so pure | |
| As I had thought it was, | |
| Because it doth endure | |
| Vicissitude, and season, as the grass; | |
| Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore | 5 |
| My love was infinite, if spring make it more. | |
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| But if this medicine, love, which cures all sorrow | |
| With more, not only be no quintessence, | |
| But mix’d of all stuffs, vexing 1 soul, or sense, | |
| And of the sun his active vigour 2 borrow, | 10 |
| Love’s not so pure, and abstract as they use | |
| To say, which have no mistress but their Muse; | |
| But as all else, being elemented too, | |
| Love sometimes would contemplate, sometimes do. | |
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| And yet no greater, but more eminent, | 15 |
| Love by the spring is grown; | |
| As in the firmament | |
| Stars by the sun are not enlarged, but shown, | |
| Gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough, | |
| From love’s awaken’d root do bud out now. | 20 |
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| If, as in water stirr’d more circles be | |
| Produced by one, love such additions take, | |
| Those like so many spheres but one heaven make, | |
| For they are all concentric unto thee; | |
| And though each spring do add to love new heat, | 25 |
| As princes do in times of action get | |
| New taxes, and remit them not in peace, | |
| No winter shall abate this spring’s 3 increase. | |
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