l. 16. Those things which elemented it. Chambers follows 1669 and reads 'The thing'—wrongly, I think. 'Elemented' is just 'composed', and the things are enumerated later, 20. 'eyes, lips, hands.' Compare:
But neither chance nor compliment
Did element our love.
Katharine Phillips (Orinda), To Mrs. M. A. at parting.
This and the fellow poem Upon Absence may be compared with Donne's poems on the same theme. See Saintsbury's Caroline Poets, i, pp. 548, 550.
l. 20. and hands: 'and' has the support of all the MSS. The want of it is no great loss, for though without it the line moves a little irregularly, 'and hands' is not a pleasant concatenation.
ll. 25-36. If they be two, &c. Donne's famous simile has a close parallel in Omar Khayyam. Whether Donne's 'hydroptic immoderate thirst of humane learning and languages' extended to Persian I do not know. Captain Harris has supplied me with translations and reference:
In these twin compasses, O Love, you see
One body with two heads, like you and me,
Which wander round one centre, circle wise,