{
 "id": "john-donne/a-valediction-to-his-book",
 "title": "A Valediction to His Book",
 "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-1635",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1635,
  "venue": "Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1635)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_poems-_donne-john-poems-by-j_1635"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-donne_poetry",
  "file": "songs-and-sonnets.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": 63,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 58,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To anger destiny, as she doth us;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How I shall stay, though she eloign me thus,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And how posterity shall know it too;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How thine may out-endure",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Sibyl’s glory, and obscure",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Her who from Pindar could allure,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And her, through whose help Lucan is not lame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her, whose book (they say) Homer did find, and name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Study our manuscripts, those myriads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of letters, which have past ’twixt thee and me;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thence write our annals, and in them will be",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To all whom love’s subliming fire invades",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rule and example found;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "There the faith of any ground",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "No schismatic will dare to wound,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "That sees, how Love this grace to us affords,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make, to keep, to use, to be these his records.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This book, as long-lived as the elements,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as the world’s form, this all-gravèd tome",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In cipher writ, or new made idiom;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We for Love’s clergy only are instruments;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When this book is made thus,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Should again the ravenous",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Vandals and the Goths invade us,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Learning were safe; in this our universe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Schools might learn sciences, spheres music, angels verse.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here Love’s divines⁠—since all divinity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is love or wonder⁠—may find all they seek,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether abstract spiritual love they like,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Their souls exhaled with what they do not see;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or, loth so to amuse",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Faith’s infirmity, they choose",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Something which they may see and use;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "For, though mind be the heaven, where love doth sit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beauty a convenient type may be to figure it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here more than in their books may lawyers find,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both by what titles mistresses are ours,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And how prerogative these states devours,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Transferr’d from Love himself, to womankind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, though from heart and eyes,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "They exact great subsidies,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Forsake him who on them relies;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the cause, honour, or conscience give;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chimeras vain as they or their prerogative.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here statesmen⁠—or of them, they which can read⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May of their occupation find the grounds;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Love, and their art, alike it deadly wounds,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If to consider what ’tis, one proceed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In both they do excel,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Who the present govern well,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose weakness none doth, or dares tell;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "In this thy book, such will there something see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in the Bible some can find out alchemy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus vent thy thoughts; abroad I’ll study thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he removes far off, that great heights takes;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How great love is, presence best trial makes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But absence tries how long this love will be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take a latitude",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Sun, or stars, are fitliest view’d",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "At their brightest, but to conclude",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Of longitudes, what other way have we,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But to mark when and where the dark eclipses be?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}