{
 "id": "john-donne/o-let-me-not-serve-so-as-those-men-serve",
 "title": "O, Let Me Not Serve So, as Those Men Serve",
 "ordinal": "Elegy VI",
 "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": "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": {
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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)"
 },
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  "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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  [
   {
    "text": "O, let me not serve so, as those men serve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom honour’s smokes at once fatten and starve,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Poorly enrich’d with great men’s words or looks;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor so write my name in thy loving books",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As those idolatrous flatterers, which still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their princes’ style with many realms fulfil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whence they no tribute have, and where no sway.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such services I offer as shall pay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Themselves; I hate dead names. O, then let me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Favourite in ordinary, or no favourite be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When my soul was in her own body sheathed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not yet by oaths betroth’d, nor kisses breathed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into my purgatory, faithless thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy heart seemed wax, and steel thy constancy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So careless flowers strew’d on the water’s face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The curled whirlpools suck, smack, and embrace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet drown them; so the taper’s beamy eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amorously twinkling beckons the giddy fly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet burns his wings; and such the devil is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scarce visiting them who are entirely his.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I behold a stream, which from the spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth with doubtful melodious murmuring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or in a speechless slumber, calmly ride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her wedded channel’s bosom, and there chide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bend her brows, and swell, if any bough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do but stoop down to kiss her utmost brow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, if her often gnawing kisses win",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The traitorous banks to gape, and let her in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She rusheth violently, and doth divorce",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her from her native and her long-kept course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And roars, and braves it, and in gallant scorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In flattering eddies promising return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She flouts her channel, which thenceforth is dry;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then say I; “That is she, and this am I.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet let not thy deep bitterness beget",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Careless despair in me, for that will whet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My mind to scorn; and O, love dull’d with pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was ne’er so wise, nor well arm’d, as disdain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then with new eyes I shall survey thee, and spy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death in thy cheeks, and darkness in thine eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though hope bred faith and love; thus taught, I shall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will renounce thy dalliance; and when I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Am the recusant, in that resolute state",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What hurts it me to be excommunicate?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}