{
 "id": "john-donne/natures-lay-idiot-i-taught-thee-to-love",
 "title": "Nature’s Lay Idiot, I Taught Thee to Love",
 "ordinal": "Elegy VII",
 "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": "Elegies",
 "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": {
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  "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",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in that sophistry, O! thou dost prove",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Too subtle; fool, thou didst not understand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mystic language of the eye nor hand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor couldst thou judge the difference of the air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sighs, and say, “This lies, this sounds despair”;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor by th’ eye’s water cast a malady",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Desperately hot, or changing feverously.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I had not taught thee then the alphabet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of flowers, how they, devisefully being set",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bound up, might with speechless secrecy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deliver errands mutely, and mutually.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remember since all thy words used to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To every suitor, “Ay, if my friends agree;”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since household charms, thy husband’s name to teach,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were all the love-tricks that thy wit could reach;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And since an hour’s discourse could scarce have made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One answer in thee, and that ill array’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In broken proverbs, and torn sentences.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art not by so many duties his⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That from th’ world’s common having sever’d thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inlaid thee, neither to be seen, nor see⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As mine; who have with amorous delicacies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Refined thee into a blissful paradise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy graces and good works my creatures be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I planted knowledge and life’s tree in thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which O! shall strangers taste? Must I, alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Frame and enamel plate, and drink in glass?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chafe wax for other’s seals? break a colt’s force,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And leave him then, being made a ready horse?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}