{
 "id": "john-donne/satire-ii",
 "title": "Satire II",
 "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",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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 "stats": {
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  [
   {
    "text": "Sir, though⁠—I thank God for it⁠—I do hate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perfectly all this town, yet there’s one state",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In all ill things so excellently best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That hate toward them breeds pity towards the rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though poetry indeed be such a sin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I think that brings dearth and Spaniards in;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though like the pestilence and old-fashion’d love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Riddlingly it catch men, and doth remove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never, till it be starved out, yet their state",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is poor, disarm’d, like Papists, not worth hate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One⁠—like a wretch, which at bar judged as dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet prompts him, which stands next and cannot read,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saves his life⁠—gives idiot actors means,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Starving himself, to live by his labour’d scenes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in some organ, puppets dance above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bellows pant below, which them do move,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One would move love by rhythms; but witchcraft’s charms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bring not now their old fears, nor their old harms.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rams and slings now are silly battery;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pistolets are the best artillery.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they who write to lords, rewards to get,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are they not like singers at doors for meat?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they who write, because all write, have still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That excuse for writing, and for writing ill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But he is worst, who (beggarly) doth chaw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Others’ wits’ fruits, and in his ravenous maw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rankly digested, doth those things out-spew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As his own things; and they’re his own, ’tis true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For if one eat my meat, though it be known",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The meat was mine, th’ excrement is his own.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But these do me no harm, nor they which use",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To outdo ⸻, and out-usure Jews,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To out-drink the sea, to out-swear the ⸻,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who with sins of all kinds as familiar be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As confessors, and for whose sinful sake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Schoolmen new tenements in hell must make,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose strange sins canonists could hardly tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In which commandment’s large receipt they dwel.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But these punish themselves. The insolence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Coscus only breeds my just offence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom time⁠—which rots all, and makes botches pox,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And plodding on, must make a calf an ox⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath made a lawyer; which was, alas, of late",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But scarce a poet; jollier of this state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than are new beneficed ministers, he throws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like nets or lime-twigs, wheresoe’er he goes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His title of barrister on every wench,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wooes in language of the pleas and bench.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“A motion, lady”⁠—speak Coscus⁠—“I have been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In love e’er since tricesimo of the Queen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Continual claims I’ve made, injunctions got,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To stay my rival’s suit, that he should not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Proceed.”⁠—Spare me.⁠—“In Hilary term I went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You said, if I return’d next ’size in Lent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I should be in remitter of your grace;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In th’ interim my letters should take place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of affidavits.” Words, words, which would tear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tender labyrinth of a soft maid’s ear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More, more than ten Sclavonians scolding, more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than when winds in our ruin’d abbeys roar.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When sick with poetry, and possess’d with Muse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou wast, and mad, I hoped; but men, which choose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Law-practice for mere gain, bold soul[s] repute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Worse than embrothell’d strumpets, prostitute.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now like an owl-like watchman, he must walk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His hand still at a bill, now he must talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Idly, like prisoners, which whole months will swear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The only suretyship hath brought them there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to every suitor lie in everything,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a king’s favourite, or like a king;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a wedge in a block, wring to the bar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing like asses, and more shameless far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than carted whores; lie to the grave judge, for",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bastardy ’bounds not in king’s titles, nor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Simony and sodomy in churchmen’s lives,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As these things do in him; by these he thrives.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shortly, as the sea, he’ll compass all the land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Scots to Wight, from Mount to Dover strand;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And spying heirs melting with luxury,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Satan will not joy at their sins, as he.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For as a thrifty wench scrapes kitchen stuff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And barrelling the droppings, and the snuff",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wasting candles, which in thirty year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Relicly kept) perchance buys wedding-gear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Piecemeal he gets lands, and spends as much time",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wringing each acre, as men pulling prime.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In parchment then, large as his fields, he draws",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Assurances, big as gloss’d civil laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So huge, that men, in our time’s forwardness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are Fathers of the church for writing less.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These he writes not, nor for these written pays;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Therefore spares no length⁠—as in those first days",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Luther was profess’d, he did desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Short pater nosters, saying as a friar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each day his beads, but having left those laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Adds to Christ’s prayer the Power and Glory clause.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when he sells or changes land, he impairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His writings, and, unwatch’d, leaves out, ses heires,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As slyly as any commenter goes by",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard words, or sense; or, in divinity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As controverters in vouch’d texts leave out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shrewd words, which might against them clear the doubt.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where are those spread woods which clothed heretofore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those bought lands? not built, nor burnt within door.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the old landlord’s troops, and alms? In halls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Carthusian fasts, and fulsome Bacchanals",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Equally I hate. Mean’s blest; in rich men’s homes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I bid kill some beasts, but no hecatombs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None starve, none surfeit so. But oh, we allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good works, as good, but out of fashion now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like old rich wardrobes. But my words none draws",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within the vast reach of th’ huge statute’s jaws.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}