{
 "id": "john-donne/satire-i",
 "title": "Satire I",
 "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": "Satires",
 "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": "satires.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": 112,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Away, thou changeling motley humourist,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave me, and in this standing wooden chest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consorted with these few books, let me lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In prison, and here be coffin’d when I die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here are God’s conduits, grave divines, and here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature’s secretary, the philosopher,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wily statesmen, which teach how to tie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sinews of a city’s mystic body;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here gathering chroniclers, and by them stand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Giddy fantastic poets of each land.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall I leave all this constant company,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And follow headlong, wild, uncertain thee?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First, swear by thy best love, here, in earnest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—If thou, which lovest all, canst love any best⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou wilt not leave me in the middle street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though some more spruce companion thou dost meet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not though a captain do come in thy way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright parcel-gilt, with forty dead men’s pay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not though a brisk perfumèd pert courtier",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deign with a nod thy courtesy to answer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor come a velvet justice with a long",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great train of blue coats, twelve or fourteen strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wilt thou grin, or fawn on him, or prepare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A speech to court his beauteous son and heir?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For better or worse take me, or leave me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take and leave me is adultery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O monstrous, superstitious puritan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of refined manners, yet ceremonial man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That when thou meet’st one, with enquiring eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth search, and like a needy broker prize",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The silk and gold he wears, and to that rate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So high or low, dost raise thy formal hat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That will consort none, until thou have known",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What lands he hath in hope, or of his own,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though all thy companions should make thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jointures, and marry thy dear company.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why shouldst thou, that dost not only approve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in rank itchy lust, desire and love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The nakedness and bareness to enjoy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of thy plump muddy whore, or prostitute boy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hate virtue, though she be naked and bare?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At birth, and death, our bodies naked are;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, till our souls be unapparelled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of bodies, they from bliss are banished.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man’s first blest state was naked; when by sin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He lost that, he was clothed but in beasts’ skin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in this coarse attire, which I now wear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With God and with the Muses I confer.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But since thou, like a contrite penitent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Charitably warn’d of thy sins, dost repent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These vanities and giddinesses, lo!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shut my chamber door; and come, let’s go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But sooner may a cheap whore, who hath been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Worn by as many several men in sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As are black feathers, or musk-coloured hose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Name her child’s right true father ’mongst all those;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sooner may one guess who shall bear away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ infant of London, heir to an India;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sooner may a gulling weather-spy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By drawing forth heaven’s scheme, tell certainly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What fashion’d hats, or ruffs, or suits next year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our subtle-witted antic youths will wear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than thou, when thou depart’st from me, can show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whither, why, when, or with whom thou wouldst go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But how shall I be pardon’d my offence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thus have sinn’d against my conscience?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now we are in the street; he first of all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Improvidently proud, creeps to the wall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so imprison’d, and hemm’d in by me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sells for a little state high liberty.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every fine, silken, painted fool we meet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He them to him with amorous smiles allures,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grins, smacks, shrugs, and such an itch endures,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ’prentices or schoolboys, which do know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of some gay sport abroad, yet dare not go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as fiddlers stop lowest, at highest sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So to the most brave, stoops he nighest the ground.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But to a grave man he doth move no more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the wise politic horse would heretofore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or thou, O elephant, or ape, wilt do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When any names the King of Spain to you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now leaps he upright, jogs me, and cries, “Do you see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yonder well-favoured youth?” “Which?” “O, ’tis he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That dances so divinely.” “O,” said I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Stand still, must you dance here for company?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He droop’d, we went, till one⁠—which did excel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ Indians in drinking his tobacco well⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Met us; they talk’d; I whisper’d, “Let us go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’T may be you smell him not; truly I do.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hears not me, but, on the other side",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A many-colour’d peacock having spied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaves him and me; I for my lost sheep stay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He follows, overtakes, goes on the way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saying, “Him whom I last left, all repute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For his device in handsoming a suit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To judge of lace, pink, panes, print, cut, and pleat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the court to have the best conceit.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Our dull comedians want him, let him go;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But O, God strengthen thee, why stopp’st thou so?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Why!” “Hath he travell’d long?” “No.” “But to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which understand none, he doth seem to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perfect French and Italian,” I replied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“So is the pox.” He answer’d not, but spied",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More men of sort, of parts and qualities.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At last his love he in a window spies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like light dew exhaled, he flings from me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Violently ravish’d to his lechery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many were there; he could command no more;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He quarrell’d, fought, bled; and turn’d out of door",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Directly came to me, hanging the head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And constantly a while must keep his bed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}