They stay'd at last and on the grass Reposed so, as o're his breast She bowed her gracious head to rest, Such a weight as no burden was. While over eithers compass'd waist Their folded arms were so compos'd As if in straightest bonds inclos'd They suffer'd for joys they did taste Long their fixt eyes to Heaven bent, Unchanged they did never move, As if so great and pure a love No glass but it could represent. In a letter to Sir Thomas Lucy, Donne writes: 'Sir I make account that this writing of letters, when it is with any seriousness, is a kind of extasie, and a departing, and secession, and suspension of the soul, which doth then communicate itself to two bodies.' Ecstasy in Neo-Platonic philosophy was the state of mind in which the soul, escaping from the body, attained to the vision of God, the One, the Absolute. Plotinus thus describes it: 'Even the word vision ([Greek: theama]) does not seem appropriate here. It is rather an ecstasy ([Greek: ekstasis]), a simplification, an abandonment of self, a perfect quietude ([Greek: stasis]), a desire of contact, in short a wish to merge oneself in that which one contemplates in the Sanctuary.' _Sixth Ennead_, ix. 11 (from the French translation of Bouillet, 1857-8). Readers will observe how closely Donne's poem agrees with this--the exodus of the souls (ll. 15-16), the perfect quiet (ll. 18-20), the new insight (ll. 29-33), the contact and union of the souls (l. 35). Donne had probably read Ficino's translation of Plotinus (1492), but the doctrine of ecstasy passed into Christian thought, connecting itself especially with the experience of St. Paul (2 Cor. xii. 2). St. Paul's word is [Greek: harpagenta], and Aquinas distinguishes between 'raptus' and 'ecstasis': 'Extasis importat simpliciter excessum a seipso ... raptus super hoc addit violentiam quandam.' Another word for 'ecstasy' was 'enthusiasm'. l. 9. _So to entergraft our hands._ All the later editions read 'engraft', which makes the line smoother. But to me it seems more probable that Donne wrote 'entergraft' and later editors changed this to 'engraft', than that the opposite should have happened. Moreover, 'entergraft' gives the reciprocal force correctly, which 'engraft' does not. Donne's precision is as marked as his subtlety. 'Entergraft' has the support of all the best MSS. PAGE =52=, l. 20. _And wee said nothing all the day._ 'En amour un silence vaut mieux qu'un langage. Il est bon d'être interdit; il y a une éloquence de silence qui pénètre plus que la langue ne saurait faire. Qu'un amant persuade bien sa maîtresse quand il est interdit, et que d'ailleurs il a de l'esprit! Quelque vivacité que l'on ait, il est bon dans certaines rencontres qu'elle s'éteigne. Tout cela se passe sans règle et sans réflexion; et quand l'esprit le fait, il n'y pensait pas auparavant. C'est par nécessité que cela arrive.' Pascal, _Discours sur les passions de l'amour_.