{
 "id": "john-donne/epitaph-on-himself",
 "title": "Epitaph on Himself",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "To the Countess of Bedford",
 "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": "Epitaphs",
 "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": "epitaphs.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": 17,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Madam,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I might make your cabinet my tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for my fame, which I love next my soul,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Next to my soul provide the happiest room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Admit to that place this last funeral scroll.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Others by wills give legacies, but I",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Dying, of you do beg a legacy.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My fortune and my will this custom break,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we are senseless grown to make stones speak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though no stone tell thee what I was, yet thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In my grave’s inside see what thou art now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet thou’rt not yet so good; till us death lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ripe and mellow there, we’re stubborn clay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Parents make us earth, and souls dignify",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us to be glass; here to grow gold we lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whilst in our souls sin bred and pamper’d is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our souls become worm-eaten carcases.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}