{
 "id": "john-donne/a-letter-to-the-lady-carey-and-mistress-essex-rich-from-amiens",
 "title": "A Letter to the Lady Carey, and Mistress Essex Rich, from Amiens",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Donne",
 "poet_slug": "john-donne",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death",
 "book_slug": "poems-1633",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Letters to Several Personages",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1633,
  "venue": "Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1633)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/donnepoems"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-donne_poetry",
  "file": "letters-to-several-personages.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswithelegie00chamgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemswithelegie01chamgoog"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 64,
  "n_stanzas": 21,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Madame⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here, where by all all saints invokèd are,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere too much schism to be singular,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ’gainst a practice general to war.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet turning to saints, should my humility",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To other saints than you directed be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That were to make my schism, heresy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor would I be a convertite so cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As not to tell it; if this be too bold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pardons are in this market cheaply sold,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where, because faith is in too low degree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I thought it some apostleship in me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To speak things which by faith alone I see:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That is, of you, who are a firmament",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of virtues, where no one is grown, or spent;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re your materials, not your ornament.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Others, whom we call virtuous, are not so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In their whole substance, but their virtues grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in their humours, and at seasons show.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For when through tasteless flat humidity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In dough-baked men some harmlessness we see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis but his phlegm that’s virtuous, and not he.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So is the blood sometimes; whoever ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To danger unimportuned, he was then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No better than a sanguine virtuous man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So cloistral men, who, in pretence of fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All contributions to this life forbear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have virtue in melancholy, and only there.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Spiritual choleric critics, which in all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Religions find faults, and forgive no fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have through their zeal virtue but in their gall.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We’re thus but parcel-gilt; to gold we’re grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When virtue is our soul’s complexion;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who knows his virtue’s name or place, hath none.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Virtue’s but aguish, when ’tis several,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By occasion waked, and circumstantial;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "True virtue’s soul, always in all deeds all.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This virtue, thinking to give dignity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To your soul, found there no infirmity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For your soul was as good virtue as she.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She therefore wrought upon that part of you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which is scarce less than soul, as she could do;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so hath made your beauty, virtue too.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hence comes it that your beauty wounds not hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As others, with profane and sensual darts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as an influence, virtuous thoughts imparts.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But if such friends by th’ honour of your sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grow capable of this so great a light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to partake your virtues and their might;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What must I think that influence must do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where it finds sympathy and matter too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue, and beauty of the same stuff, as you?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Which is, your noble worthy sister; she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of whom, if what in this my ecstasy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And revelation of you both I see,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I should write here, as in short galleries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The master at the end large glasses ties,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So to present the room twice to our eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So I should give this letter length, and say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That which I said of you; there is no way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From either, but by th’ other, not to stray.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "May therefore this be enough to testify",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My true devotion, free from flattery;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He that believes himself, doth never lie.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}