Produced by one, love such additions take,
Those like so many spheres but one heaven make,
For they are all concentric unto thee.”
(I. 34, 35.)
Again, in “The Dream,” he fears the strength of his beloved’s affection if it is mingled with a sense of fear, or shame, or honor.
“That love is weak where fear’s as strong as he;
T’is not all spirit, pure and brave,
If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have;”
(I. 39.)
This refinement of the subject of love is carried to an even greater excess. Love is such a passion that it can be defined only by negatives. It is above apprehension, because sense and soul both can know the object of their love. In the poem of Donne’s “Negative Love,” in which this idea is expressed, it is probable that the poet has in mind the description of The One which Plotinus outlines in the “Enneads.” Summing up his discussion of The One, or The Good, in which he has pointed out how it is above intellect, Plotinus says: “If, however, anything is present with the good, it is present with it in a way transcending knowledge and intelligence and a cosensation of itself, since it has not anything different from itself.... On this account says Plato [in the “Parmenides,” speaking of the one] that neither language can describe, nor sense nor science apprehend it, because nothing can be predicated of it as present with it.” (“Enneads,” VI. vii. 41.) Transferring this idea of the transcendency of The One to his love, Donne had the form of thought for his lyric.