Rainbow

"Hast thou looked ever, on a showery day in spring, upon the rainbow flung across earth and sky, and marked how all things of earth beyond it, trees, mountain-sides, and rivers, and fields, and woods, and homes of men, are transfigured by the colours that are in the bow?"

"Yes," she said, "and oft desired to reach them."

"We have flown beyond the rainbow. And there we found no fabled land of heart's desire, but wet rain and wind only and the cold mountain-side. And our hearts are a-cold because of it."

—E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ourorobos.

Selfe-Love

He that cannot chuse but love.
And strives against it still.
Never shall my fancy move.
For he loves 'gaynst his will;
Nor he which is all his own.
And can att pleasure chuse;
When I am caught he can be gone.
And when he list refuse.
Nor he that loves none but faire.
For such by all are sought;
Nor he that can for foul ones care.
For his Judgement then is naught:
Nor he that hath wit, for he
Will make me his jest or slave;
Nor a fool, for when others ...,
He can neither ......
Nor he that still his Mistresse payes,
For she is thrall'd therefore:
Nor he that payes not, for he sayes
Within, shee's worth no more.
Is there then no kind of men
Whom I may freely prove?
I will vent that humour then
In mine own selfe love.

—John Donne, quoted in The Worm Ouroboros, by E.R. Eddison.