{
 "id": "john-donne/elegy-upon-the-untimely-death-of-the-incomparable-prince-henry",
 "title": "Elegy Upon the Untimely Death of the Incomparable Prince Henry",
 "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": "Epicedes and Obsequies Upon the Death of Sundry 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": "epicedes-and-obsequies.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",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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  [
   {
    "text": "Look to me, faith, and look to my faith, God;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For both my centres feel this period.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of weight one centre, one of greatness is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And reason is that centre, faith is this;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For into our reason flow, and there do end,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All that this natural world doth comprehend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quotidian things, and equidistant hence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shut in, for man, in one circumference.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But for th’ enormous greatnesses, which are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So disproportion’d and so angular,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As is God’s essence, place, and providence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, how, when, what souls do, departed hence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These things (eccentric else) on faith do strike;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet neither all, nor upon all, alike.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For reason, put to her best extension,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almost meets faith, and makes both centres one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nothing ever came so near to this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As contemplation of that prince we miss.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all that faith might credit mankind could,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reason still seconded that this prince would.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If, then, least moving of the centre make,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More than if whole hell belch’d, the world to shake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What must this do, centres distracted so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That we see not what to believe or know?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was it not well believed till now, that he,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose reputation was an ecstasy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On neighbour states, which knew not why to wake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he discover’d what ways he would take;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For whom, what princes angled, when they tried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Met a torpedo, and were stupefied;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And others’ studies, how he would be bent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was his great father’s greatest instrument,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And activest spirit, to convey and tie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This soul of peace through Christianity?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was it not well believed, that he would make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This general peace th’ eternal overtake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that his times might have stretch’d out so far,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to touch those of which they emblems are?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For to confirm this just belief, that now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last days came, we saw heaven did allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, but from his aspect and exercise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In peaceful times rumours of wars did rise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now this faith is heresy; we must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still stay, and vex our great-grandmother, Dust.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, is God prodigal? hath He spent His store",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of plagues on us; and only now, when more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would ease us much, doth He grudge misery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And will not let’s enjoy our curse⁠—to die?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As for the earth thrown lowest down of all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere an ambition to desire to fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So God, in our desire to die, doth know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our plot for ease, in being wretched so.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore we live; though such a life we have,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As but so many mandrakes on his grave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What had his growth and generation done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When, what we are, his putrefaction",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sustains in us, earth, which griefs animate?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor hath our world now other soul than that;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And could grief get so high as heaven, that choir,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgetting this their new joy, would desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—With grief to see him⁠—he had stay’d below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To rectify our errors they foreknow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the other centre, reason, faster then?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where should we look for that, now we’re not men?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For if our reason be our connection",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of causes, now to us there can be none.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For, as if all the substances were spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twere madness to enquire of accident,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So is ’t to look for reason, he being gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The only subject reason wrought upon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If fate have such a chain, whose divers links",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Industrious man discerneth, as he thinks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When miracle doth come, and so steal in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A new link, man knows not where to begin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At a much deader fault must reason be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death having broke off such a link as he.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now, for us, with busy proof to come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That we’ve no reason, would prove we had some.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So would just lamentations; therefore we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May safelier say, that we are dead, than he;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, if our griefs we do not well declare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ve double excuse; he is not dead, and we are.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I would not die yet; for though I be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too narrow to think him, as he is he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Our souls best baiting and mid-period,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her long journey, of considering God⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, no dishonour, I can reach him thus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he embraced the fires of love, with us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O may I, since I live, but see or hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she⁠—intelligence which moved this sphere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I pardon fate, my life; whoe’er thou be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which hast the noble conscience, thou art she.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I conjure thee by all the charms he spoke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By th’ oaths, which only you two never broke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all the souls ye sigh’d, that if you see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These lines, you wish I knew your history;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, much as you two mutual heavens were here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I were an angel, singing what you were.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}