{
 "id": "john-donne/heroical-epistle",
 "title": "Heroical Epistle",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "Sappho to Philaenis",
 "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": "Elegies",
 "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": "elegies.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": 64,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Where is that holy fire, which verse is said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have? Is that enchanting force decay’d?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Verse that draws nature’s works from nature’s law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee, her best work, to her work cannot draw.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Have my tears quench’d my old poetic fire?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why quench’d they not as well that of desire?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thoughts, my mind’s creatures, often are with thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I, their maker, want their liberty.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Only thine image in my heart doth sit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that is wax, and fires environ it.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My fires have driven, thine have drawn it hence;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I am robb’d of picture, heart, and sense.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dwells with me still mine irksome memory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, both to keep and lose, grieves equally.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That tells me how fair thou art; thou art so fair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As gods, when gods to thee I do compare,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Are graced thereby; and to make blind men see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What things gods are, I say they’re like to thee.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For if we justly call each silly man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A little world, what shall we call thee then?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art not soft, and clear, and straight, and fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As down, as stars, cedars, and lilies are;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But thy right hand, and cheek, and eye, only",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are like thy other hand, and cheek, and eye.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Such was my Phao awhile, but shall be never,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As thou wast, art, and O, mayst thou be ever.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here lovers swear in their idolatry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I am such; but grief discolours me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet I grieve the less, lest grief remove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My beauty, and make me unworthy of thy love.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Plays some soft boy with thee, O, there wants yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A mutual feeling which should sweeten it.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His chin, a thorny, hairy unevenness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth threaten, and some daily change possess.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy body is a natural paradise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In whose self, unmanured, all pleasure lies,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor needs perfection; why shouldst thou then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Admit the tillage of a harsh rough man?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Men leave behind them that which their sin shows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And are as thieves traced, which rob when it snows.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But of our dalliance no more signs there are,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than fishes leave in streams, or birds in air;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And between us all sweetness may be had,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All, all that nature yields, or art can add.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My two lips, eyes, thighs, differ from thy two",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But so, as thine from one another do,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, O, no more; the likeness being such,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should they not alike in all parts touch?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hand to strange hand, lip to lip none denies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should they breast to breast, or thighs to thighs?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Likeness begets such strange self-flattery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That touching myself all seems done to thee.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Myself I embrace, and mine own hands I kiss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And amorously thank myself for this.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Me, in my glass, I call thee; but alas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I would kiss, tears dim mine eyes and glass.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O cure this loving madness, and restore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me to thee, thee my half, my all, my more.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So may thy cheeks’ red outwear scarlet dye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their white, whiteness of the Galaxy;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So may thy mighty, amazing beauty move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Envy in all women, and in all men love;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And so be change and sickness far from thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As thou by coming near keep’st them from me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}