{
 "id": "john-donne/self-love",
 "title": "Self-Love",
 "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-1650",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1650,
  "venue": "Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1650)",
  "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-1641-1700_poems-_donne-john_1650"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-donne_poetry",
  "file": "songs-and-sonnets.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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "He that cannot choose but love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And strives against it still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never shall my fancy move,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For he loves against his will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he which is all his own,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cannot pleasure choose;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I am caught he can be gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when he list refuse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he that loves none but fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For such by all are sought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he that can for foul ones care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For his judgment then is nought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he that hath wit, for he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will make me his jest or slave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor a fool when others ⸻",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He can neither ⸻",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he that still his mistress prays,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For she is thrall’d therefore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor he that pays, not, for he says",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within, she’s worth no more.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is there then no kind of men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom I may freely prove?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will vent that humour then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mine own self-love.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}