{
 "id": "john-donne/loves-diet",
 "title": "Love’s Diet",
 "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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To what a cumbersome unwieldiness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And burdenous corpulence my love had grown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that I did, to make it less,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And keep it in proportion,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Give it a diet, made it feed upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That which love worst endures, discretion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Above one sigh a day I allow’d him not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which my fortune, and my faults had part;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if sometimes by stealth he got",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A she sigh from my mistress’ heart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thought to feast on that, I let him see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas neither very sound, nor meant to me.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If he wrung from me a tear, I brined it so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With scorn or shame, that him it nourish’d not;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If he suck’d hers, I let him know",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas not a tear which he had got;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His drink was counterfeit, as was his meat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For eyes, which roll towards all, weep not, but sweat.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whatever he would dictate I writ that,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But burnt her letters when she writ to me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if that favour made him fat,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I said, “If any title be",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Convey’d by this, ah! what doth it avail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be the fortieth name in an entail?”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus I reclaim’d my buzzard love, to flie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now negligent of sports I lie,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And now, as other falconers use,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I spring a mistress, swear, write, sigh, and weep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the game kill’d, or lost, go talk or sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}