{
 "id": "john-donne/satire-v",
 "title": "Satire V",
 "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": "2026-08-19"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 91,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 60,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou shalt not laugh in this leaf, Muse, nor they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom any pity warms. He which did lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rules to make courtiers⁠—he being understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May make good courtiers, but who courtiers good?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Frees from the sting of jests all who in extreme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are wretched or wicked; of these two a theme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Charity and liberty give me. What is he,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who officers’ rage and suitors’ misery",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can write and jest? If all things be in all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—As I think, since all which were, are, and shall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be, be made of the same elements,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each thing each thing implies or represents⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then man is a world; in which officers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are the vast ravishing seas, and suitors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Springs, now full, now shallow, now dry, which to",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That which drowns them run; these self reasons do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prove the world a man, in which officers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are the devouring stomach, and suitors",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ excrements which they void. All men are dust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How much worse are suitors, who to men’s lust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are made preys? O, worse than dust or worms’ meat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For they do eat you now, whose selves worms shall eat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are the mills which grind you, yet you are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind which drives them; and a wasteful war",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is fought against you, and you fight it; they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Adulterate law, and you prepare the way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like wittols, th’ issue your own ruin is.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greatest and fairest empress, know you this?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas, no more than Thames’ calm head doth know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose meads her arms drown, or whose corn o’erflow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, sir, whose righteousness she loves, whom I,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By having leave to serve, am most richly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For service paid, authorized now begin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To know and weed out this enormous sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O age of rusty iron!⁠—some better wit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Call it some worse name, if aught equal it⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ iron age that was, when justice was sold⁠—now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Injustice is sold dearer⁠—did allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All claimed fees and duties. Gamesters, anon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The money which you sweat and swear for is gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into other hands. So controverted lands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Scape, like Angelica, the striver’s hands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If law be in the judge’s heart, and he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have no heart to resist letter, or fee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where wilt thou appeal? power of the courts below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flows from the first main head, and these can throw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee, if they suck thee in, to misery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fetters, halters. But if the injury",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Steel thee to dare complain; alas, thou goest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the stream, upwards, when thou art most",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heavy and most faint; and in these labours they,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Gainst whom thou shouldst complain, will in thy way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Become great seas, o’er which, when thou shalt be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forced to make golden bridges, thou shalt see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all thy gold was drown’d in them before.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All things follow their like; only who have, may have more.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Judges are gods; he who made and said them so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meant not men should be forced to them to go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By means of angels. When supplications",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We send to God; to Dominations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Powers, Cherubins, and all heaven’s courts, if we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should pay fees as here, daily bread would be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scarce to kings; so ’tis. Would it not anger",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Stoic, a coward, yea a martyr,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To see a pursuivant come in, and call",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All his clothes copes, books primers, and all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His plate chalices, and mistake them away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lack a fee for coming? Oh! ne’er may",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair Law’s white reverend name be strumpeted,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To warrant thefts; she is established",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Recorder to Destiny on earth, and she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speaks Fate’s words, and but tells us who must be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rich, who poor; who in chairs, who in gaols.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She is all fair, but yet hath foul long nails,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With which she scratcheth suitors; in bodies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men, so in law, nails are extremities.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So officers stretch to more than law can do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As our nails reach what no else part comes to.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why barest thou to yon officer? Fool! hath he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Got those goods, for which erst men bared to thee?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fool! twice, thrice thou hast bought wrong, and now hungrily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beg’st right, but that dole comes not till these die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hadst much, and laws Urim and Thummim try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou wouldst for more; and for all hast paper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough to clothe all the great Carrick’s pepper.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sell that, and by that thou much more shalt leese",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Hammon if he sold his antiquities.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O wretch, that thy fortunes should moralize",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Esop’s fables, and make tales prophecies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art the swimming dog whom shadows cozened,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And divest, near drowning, for what vanished.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ],
 "notes": [
  {
   "id": "running-heads-not-a-weld",
   "kind": "defect",
   "raised": "2026-08-19",
   "what": "defects.py sections flags this record on SATIRES running heads (OCR SATIRES, 20I / 20 J). Chambers vol. 2 contents lists Satire V as one poem.",
   "consequence": "Left as one poem. The flag list is not the split list.",
   "to_settle": "Nothing on the verse. A cleaner witness would drop the running-head flag.",
   "checked_against": [
    "https://archive.org/details/poemswithelegie01chamgoog",
    "https://github.com/standardebooks/john-donne_poetry"
   ]
  }
 ]
}