{
 "id": "john-donne/the-bracelet",
 "title": "The Bracelet",
 "ordinal": "Elegy XI",
 "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",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemswithelegie00chamgoog",
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  [
   {
    "text": "Not that in colour it was like thy hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For armlets of that thou mayst let me wear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor that thy hand it oft embraced and kiss’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For so it had that good, which oft I miss’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor for that silly old morality,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, as these links were knit, our love should be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mourn I that I thy sevenfold chain have lost;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor for the luck sake; but the bitter cost.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, shall twelve righteous angels, which as yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No leaven of vile solder did admit;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor yet by any way have stray’d or gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the first state of their creation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Angels, which heaven commanded to provide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All things to me, and be my faithful guide;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To gain new friends, to appease great enemies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To comfort my soul, when I lie or rise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall these twelve innocents, by thy severe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sentence, dread judge, my sin’s great burden bear?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall they be damn’d, and in the furnace thrown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And punish’d for offences not their own?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They save not me, they do not ease my pains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When in that hell they’re burnt and tied in chains.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were they but crowns of France, I carèd not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For most of these their country’s natural rot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I think, possesseth; they come here to us",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So pale, so lame, so lean, so ruinous.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And howsoe’er French kings most Christian be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their crowns are circumcised most Jewishly.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or were they Spanish stamps, still travelling,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That are become as Catholic as their king;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those unlick’d bear-whelps, unfiled pistolets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That⁠—more than cannon shot⁠—avails or lets;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, negligently left unrounded, look",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like many-angled figures in the book",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of some great conjurer that would enforce",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature, as these do justice, from her course;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, as the soul quickens head, feet and heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As streams, like veins, run through th’ earth’s every part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Visit all countries, and have slyly made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gorgeous France, ruin’d, ragged and decay’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scotland, which knew no state, proud in one day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mangled seventeen-headed Belgia.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or were it such gold as that wherewithal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almighty chemics, from each mineral",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having by subtle fire a soul out-pull’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are dirtily and desperately gull’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would not spit to quench the fire they’re in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For they are guilty of much heinous sin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But shall my harmless angels perish? Shall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I lose my guard, my ease, my food, my all?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much hope which they should nourish will be dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much of my able youth, and lustihead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will vanish; if thou love, let them alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For thou wilt love me less when they are gone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be content that some loud squeaking crier,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well-pleas’d with one lean threadbare groat for hire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May like a devil roar through every street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And gall the finder’s conscience, if he meet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or let me creep to some dread conjurer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That with fantastic scenes fills full much paper;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which hath divided heaven in tenements,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with whores, thieves, and murderers stuff’d his rents",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So full, that though he pass them all in sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He leaves himself no room to enter in.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But if, when all his art and time is spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He say ’twill ne’er be found; yet be content;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Receive from him that doom ungrudgingly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because he is the mouth of destiny.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou say’st, alas! the gold doth still remain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it be changed, and put into a chain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So in the first fallen angels resteth still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wisdom and knowledge, but ’tis turn’d to ill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As these should do good works, and should provide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Necessities; but now must nurse thy pride.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they are still bad angels; mine are none;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For form gives being, and their form is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pity these angels yet; their dignities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pass Virtues, Powers, and Principalities.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But thou art resolute; thy will be done;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet with such anguish, as her only son",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mother in the hungry grave doth lay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unto the fire these martyrs I betray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good souls⁠—for you give life to everything⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good angels⁠—for good messages you bring⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Destined you might have been to such an one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As would have loved and worshipp’d you alone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One that would suffer hunger, nakedness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea death, ere he would make your number less;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, I am guilty of your sad decay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May your few fellows longer with me stay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But O! thou wretched finder whom I hate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, that I almost pity thy estate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gold being the heaviest metal amongst all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May my most heavy curse upon thee fall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here fetter’d, manacled, and hang’d in chains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First mayst thou be; then chain’d to hellish pains;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or be with foreign gold bribed to betray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy country, and fail both of it and thy pay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May the next thing thou stoop’st to reach, contain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poison, whose nimble fume rot thy moist brain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or libels, or some interdicted thing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which negligently kept thy ruin bring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lust-bred diseases rot thee; and dwell with thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Itching desire, and no ability.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May all the evils that gold ever wrought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All mischief that all devils ever thought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Want after plenty, poor and gouty age,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The plagues of travellers, love, marriage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Afflict thee, and at thy life’s last moment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May thy swollen sins themselves to thee present.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, I forgive; repent thee, honest man!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Gold is restorative; restore it then:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But if from it thou be’st loth to depart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because ’tis cordial, would ’twere at thy heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}