{
 "id": "john-donne/his-parting-from-her",
 "title": "His Parting from Her",
 "ordinal": "Elegy XII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Donne",
 "poet_slug": "john-donne",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems, &c. by John Donne, late Dean of St. Pauls, with Elegies on the Authors Death",
 "book_slug": "poems-1669",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Elegies",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1669,
  "venue": "Poems, &c. by John Donne, late Dean of St. Pauls, with Elegies on the Authors Death (1669)",
  "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-1641-1700_poems-_donne-john_1669"
  ]
 },
 "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": "2026-08-15"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 104,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 62,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Since she must go, and I must mourn, come night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Environ me with darkness, whilst I write;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadow that hell unto me, which alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am to suffer when my love is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! the darkest magic cannot do it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that great hell, to boot, are shadows to it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should Cynthia quit thee, Venus, and each star,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It would not form one thought dark as mine are.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could lend them obscureness now, and say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of myself, there should be no more day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such is already my self-want of sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did not the fire within me force a light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Love, that fire and darkness should be mix’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or to thy triumphs such strange torments fix’d!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it because thou thyself art blind, that we,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy martyrs, must no more each other see?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or takest thou pride to break us on thy wheel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And view old Chaos in the pains we feel?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or have we left undone some mutual rite,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thus with parting thou seek’st us to spite?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, no. The fault is mine, impute it to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or rather to conspiring destiny,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, since I loved in jest before, decreed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I should suffer, when I loved indeed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And therefore, sooner now than I can say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw the golden fruit, ’tis rapt away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as I’d watch’d one drop in the vast stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I left wealthy only in a dream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, Love, thou’rt blinder than myself in this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To vex my dove-like friend for my amiss;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where one sad truth may expiate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy wrath, to make her fortune run my fate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So blinded justice doth, when favourites fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strike them, their house, their friends, their favourites all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was’t not enough that thou didst dart thy fires",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into our bloods, inflaming our desires,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And madest us sigh, and blow, and pant, and burn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then thyself into our flames didst turn?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was’t not enough that thou didst hazard us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To paths in love so dark and dangerous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And those so ambush’d round with household spies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And over all thy husband’s towering eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inflamed with th’ ugly sweat of jealousy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet went we not still on in constancy?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have we for this kept guards, like spy on spy?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had correspondence whilst the foe stood by?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stolen, more to sweeten them, our many blisses",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of meetings, conference, embracements, kisses?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shadow’d with negligence our best respects?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Varied our language through all dialects",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of becks, winks, looks, and often under boards",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spoke dialogues with our feet far from our words?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have we proved all the secrets of our art,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, thy pale inwards, and thy panting heart?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, after all this passed purgatory,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must sad divorce make us the vulgar story?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First let our eyes be riveted quite through",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our turning brain, and both our lips grow to;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let our arms clasp like ivy, and our fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freeze us together, that we may stick here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Fortune, that would ruin us with the deed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strain his eyes open, and yet make them bleed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Love it cannot be, whom hitherto",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have accused, should such a mischief do.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Fortune, thou’rt not worth my least exclaim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And plague enough thou hast in thy own name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do thy great worst; my friend and I have charms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though not against thy strokes, against thy harms.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rend us in sunder; thou canst not divide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our bodies so, but that our souls are tied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we can love by letters still and gifts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thoughts and dreams; love never wanteth shifts.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will not look upon the quickening sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But straight her beauty to my sense shall run;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The air shall note her soft, the fire, most pure;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waters suggest her clear, and the earth sure.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Time shall not lose our passages; the spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How fresh our love was in the beginning;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The summer, how it ripen’d in the year;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And autumn, what our golden harvests were;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The winter I’ll not think on to spite thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But count it a lost season; so shall she.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dearest friend, since we must part, drown night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With hope of day⁠—burdens well borne are light⁠—;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cold and darkness longer hang somewhere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet Phoebus equally lights all the sphere;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what we cannot in like portion pay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world enjoys in mass, and so we may.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be then ever yourself, and let no woe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Win on your health, your youth, your beauty; so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Declare yourself base Fortune’s enemy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No less be your contempt than her inconstancy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I may grow enamour’d on your mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When mine own thoughts I here neglected find.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And this to the comfort of my dear I vow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My deeds shall still be what my deeds are now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poles shall move to teach me ere I start;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when I change my love, I’ll change my heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay, if I wax but cold in my desire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think, heaven hath motion lost, and the world, fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much more I could, but many words have made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That oft suspected which men most persuade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take therefore all in this; I love so true,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I will never look for less in you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}