{
 "id": "john-donne/farewell-to-love",
 "title": "Farewell to 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-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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 6
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Whilst yet to prove",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I thought there was some deity in love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So did I reverence, and gave",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Worship; as atheists at their dying hour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Call, what they cannot name, an unknown power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ignorantly did I crave.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus when",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "Things not yet known are coveted by men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our desires give them fashion, and so",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As they wax lesser, fall, as they size, grow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, from late fair,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "His highness sitting in a golden chair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not less cared for after three days",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By children, than the thing which lovers so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blindly admire, and with such worship woo;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being had, enjoying it decays;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thence,",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "What before pleased them all, takes but one sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that so lamely, as it leaves behind",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A kind of sorrowing dullness to the mind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, cannot we,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "As well as cocks and lions, jocund be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After such pleasures, unless wise",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature decreed⁠—since each such act, they say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Diminisheth the length of life a day⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This; as she would man should despise",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sport,",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "Because that other curse of being short,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And only for a minute made to be",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Eager, desires to raise posterity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Since so, my mind",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall not desire what no man else can find;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll no more dote and run",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To pursue things which had endamaged me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when I come where moving beauties be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As men do when the summer’s sun",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Grows great,",
    "indent": 6
   },
   {
    "text": "Though I admire their greatness, shun their heat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each place can afford shadows; if all fail,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis but applying wormseed to the tail.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}