{
 "id": "john-donne/loves-deity",
 "title": "Love’s Deity",
 "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": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "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": "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who died before the god of love was born.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I cannot think that he, who then loved most,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But since this god produced a destiny,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must love her that loves not me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he in his young godhead practised it.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But when an even flame two hearts did touch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His office was indulgently to fit",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Actives to passives. Correspondency",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only his subject was; it cannot be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love, till I love her, who loves me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But every modern god will now extend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His vast prerogative as far as Jove.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All is the purlieu of the god of love.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O! were we waken’d by this tyranny",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ungod this child again, it could not be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I should love her, who loves not me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though I felt the worst that love could do?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Love may make me leave loving, or might try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A deeper plague, to make her love me too;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, since she loves before, I’m loth to see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If she whom I love, should love me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}