{
 "id": "john-donne/confined-love",
 "title": "Confined Love",
 "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": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "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": "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Some man unworthy to be possessor",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If on womankind he might his anger wreak;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thence a law did grow,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "One might but one man know;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "But are other creatures so?",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To smile where they list, or lend away their light?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are birds divorced or are they chidden",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a night?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beasts do no jointures lose",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Though they new lovers choose;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "But we are made worse than those.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whoe’er rigg’d fair ships to lie in harbours,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And not to seek lands, or not to deal with all?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Only to lock up, or else to let them fall?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good is not good, unless",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "A thousand it possess,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "But doth waste with greediness.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}