For reason, much too strong for phantasie,
Therefore thou wak'dst me wisely; yet
My Dreame thou brok'st not, but continued'st it,
Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
Enter these armes, &c.
I have left the punctuation of the first stanza unaltered. The sense is clear and any modernization alters the rhetoric. Chambers places a semicolon after 'dreame' and a full stop after 'phantasie'. The last is certainly wrong, for the statement 'It was a theme', &c. is connected not with what precedes, but with what follows, 'Therefore thou waked'st me wisely.' In like manner Chambers's full stop after 'but continued'st it' breaks the close connexion with the two following lines, which are really an adverbial clause of explanation or reason. 'My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it,' for 'Thou art so truth', &c. A full stop might more justifiably be placed after 'histories', but the semicolon is more in Donne's manner.
l. 7. Thou art so truth. The evidence of the MSS. shows that both 'truth' and 'true' were current versions and explains the alteration of 1635-69. But 'truth' is both the more difficult reading and the more subtle expression of Donne's thought; 'true' is the obvious emendation of less metaphysical copyists and editors. Donne's 'Love' is not true as opposed to false only; she is 'truth' as opposed to dreams or phantasms or aught that partakes of unreality. She is essentially truth as God is: 'Respondeo dicendum quod ... veritas invenitur in intellectu, secundum quod apprehendit rem ut est; et in re, secundum quod habet esse conformabile intellectui. Hoc autem maxime invenitur in Deo. Nam esse eius non solum est conforme suo intelligere; et suum intelligere est mensura et causa omnis alterius esse, et omnis alterius intellectus; et ipse est suum esse et intelligere. Unde sequitur quod non solum in ipso sit veritas, sed quod ipse sit ipsa summa et prima veritas. Summa I. vi. 5.
To deify the object of your love was a common topic of love-poetry; Donne does so with all the subtleties of scholastic theology at his finger-ends. In this single poem he attributes to the lady addressed two attributes of Deity, (1) the identity of being and essence, (2) the power of reading the thoughts directly.
The Dutch poet keeps this point: