“If, as in water stirr’d more circles be 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. “I never stoop’d so low, as they Which on an eye, cheek, lip, can prey; Seldom to them which soar no higher Than virtue, or the mind to admire. For sense and understanding may Know what gives fuel to their fire; My love, though silly, is more brave; For may I miss whene’er I crave, If I know yet what I would have. “If that be simply perfectest, Which can by no way be express’d But negatives, my love is so. To all, which all love, I say no. If any who deciphers best, What we know not—ourselves—can know, Let him teach me that nothing. This As yet my ease and comfort is, Though I speed not, I cannot miss.”