{
 "id": "john-donne/on-his-mistress",
 "title": "On His Mistress",
 "ordinal": "Elegy XVI",
 "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": {
  "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 2,
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "By our first strange and fatal interview,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all desires which thereof did ensue,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By our long starving hopes, by that remorse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which my words’ masculine persuasive force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Begot in thee, and by the memory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten’d me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I calmly beg. But by thy father’s wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By all pains, which want and divorcement hath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I conjure thee, and all the oaths which I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here I unswear, and overswear them thus;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou shalt not love by ways so dangerous.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Temper, O fair love, love’s impetuous rage;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be my true mistress still, not my feign’d page.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thirst to come back; O! if thou die before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy else almighty beauty cannot move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor tame wild Boreas’ harshness; thou hast read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How roughly he in pieces shivered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall ill or good, ’tis madness to have proved",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dangers unurged; feed on this flattery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That absent lovers one in th’ other be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy body’s habit, nor mind; be not strange",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thyself only. All will spy in thy face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A blushing womanly discovering grace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Richly clothed apes are call’d apes, and as soon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eclipsed as bright, we call the moon the moon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men of France, changeable chameleons,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spitals of diseases, shops of fashions,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love’s fuellers, and the rightest company",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of players, which upon the world’s stage be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will quickly know thee, and no less, alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ indifferent Italian, as we pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His warm land, well content to think thee page,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Lot’s fair guests were vex’d. But none of these,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor spongy hydroptic Dutch shall thee displease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If thou stay here. O stay here, for for thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "England is only a worthy gallery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To walk in expectation, till from thence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our greatest king call thee to his presence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I am gone, dream me some happiness;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor bless nor curse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Openly love’s force, nor in bed fright thy nurse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With midnight’s startings, crying out, O! O!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nurse, O! my love is slain; I saw him go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assail’d, fight, taken, stabb’d, bleed, fall, and die",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Augur me better chance, except dread Jove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think it enough for me to have had thy love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}