I have transferred this poem hither from its place in _1635-69_ among the sober _Letters to Severall Personages_. It has obviously a closer relation to the Elegies, and must have been composed about the same time. Its genus is the Heroical Epistle modelled on Ovid, of which Drayton produced the most popular English imitations in 1597. Donne's was possibly evoked by these and written in 1597-8, but there is no means of dating it exactly. 'Passionating' and 'conceited' eloquence is the quality of these poems modelled on Ovid, and whatever one may think of the poem on moral grounds it is impossible to deny that Donne has caught the tone of the kind, and written a poem passionate and eloquent in its own not altogether admirable way. The reader is more than once reminded of Mr. Swinburne's far less conceited but more diffuse _Anactoria_. l. 22. _As Down, as Stars, &c._ 'Down' is probably correct, but the 'Dowves' (i.e. doves) of _P_ gives the plural as in the other nouns, and a closer parallel in poetic vividness. We get a series of pictures--doves, stars, cedars, lilies. The meaning conveyed would be the same: this hand As soft as doves-downe, and as white as it. _Wint. Tale_, IV. iv. 374. But of course swan's down is also celebrated: Heaven with sweet repose doth crowne Each vertue softer than the swan's fam'd downe. Habington, _Castara_. PAGE =125=, l. 33. Modern editors separate 'thorny' and 'hairy' by a comma. They should rather be connected by a hyphen as in _TCD_. l. 40. _And are, as theeves trac'd, which rob when it snows._ This is doubtless the source of Dryden's figurative description of Jonson's thefts from the Ancients: 'You track him everywhere in their snow.' _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_. EPITHALAMIONS. PAGE =127=. The dates of the two chief Marriage Songs are: the Princess Elizabeth, Feb. 14, 1613; the Earl of Somerset, Dec. 26, 1613. The third is an earlier piece of work, dating from the years when Donne was a student at Lincoln's Inn. It is found in _W_, following the _Satyres_ and _Elegies_ and preceding the _Letters_, being probably the only one written when the collection in the first part of that MS. was made. While quite himself in his treatment of the theme of this kind of poem, Donne comes in it nearer to Spenser than in any other kind. In glow and colour nothing he has written surpasses the Somerset Epithalamion: First her eyes kindle other Ladies eyes, Then from their beams their jewels lusters rise, And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth and light and good desire.