Upon the sightless couriers of the air, &c.
It is an echo of:
He rode upon the cherubins and did fly;
He came flying upon the wings of the wind. Psalm xviii. 10.
'Cherubin' is a singular in Shakespeare, and 'cherubim' as a plural he did not know.
l. 73. a Lampe of Balsamum, i.e. burning balsam instead of ordinary oil: 'And as Constantine ordained, that upon this day' (Christmas Day), 'the Church should burne no Oyle, but Balsamum in her Lamps, so let us ever celebrate this day, with a thankfull acknowledgment, that Christ who is unctus Domini, The Anointed of the Lord, hath anointed us with the Oyle of gladnesse above our fellowes.' Sermons 80. 7. 72.
ll. 75-7. Cloath'd in, &c. Chambers's arrangement of these lines is ingenious but, I think, mistaken because it alters the emphasis of the sentences. The stress is not laid by Donne on her purity, but on her early death: 'She expir'd while she was still a virgin. She went away before she was a woman.' Line 76:
For marriage, though it doe not staine, doth dye.
is a sudden digression. Dryden filches these lines:
All white, a Virgin-Saint, she sought the skies