l. 8. _A flaske of powder burne a day._ The 'flash' of later editions
is probably a conjectural emendation, for 'flaske' (_1633_ and many
MSS.) makes good sense; and the metaphor of a burning flask of powder
seems to suit exactly the later lines which describe what happened to
the heart which love inflamed
but Love, alas,
At one first blow did shiver it as glasse.
Shakespeare uses the same simile in a different connexion:
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Mis-shapen in the conduct of them both:
Like powder in a skilless soldiers flaske,
Is set a fire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismembred with thine owne defence.
_Romeo and Juliet_, III. iii. 130.
l. 14. _and never chawes_: 'chaw' is the form Donne generally uses:
'Implicite beleevers, ignorant beleevers, the adversary may swallow;
but the understanding beleever, he must chaw, and pick bones, before
he come to assimilate him, and make him like himself.' _Sermons_ 80.
18. 178.