{
 "id": "john-donne/the-comparison",
 "title": "The Comparison",
 "ordinal": "Elegy VIII",
 "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": "Elegies",
 "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": "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",
  "corrections": [
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 54,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "As that which from chafed musk cat’s pores doth trill,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "As the almighty balm of th’ early east,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such are the sweat drops of my mistress’ breast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They seem no sweat drops, but pearl carcanets.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rank sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like spermatic issue of ripe menstruous boils,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or like the scum, which, by need’s lawless raw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enforced, Sanserra’s starvèd men did draw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From parboil’d shoes and boots, and all the rest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which were with any sovereign fatness blest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like vile lying stones in saffron’d tin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or warts, or wheals, it hangs upon her skin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Round as the world’s her head, on every side,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like to the fatal ball which fell on Ide;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or that whereof God had such jealousy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As for the ravishing thereof we die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy head is like a rough-hewn statue of jet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where marks for eyes, nose, mouth, are yet scarce set;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the first chaos, or flat seeming face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Cynthia, when th’ earth’s shadows her embrace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like Proserpine’s white beauty-keeping chest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or Jove’s best fortune’s urn, is her fair breast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thine’s like worm-eaten trunks, clothed in seal’s skin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or grave, that’s dust without, and stink within.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like that slender stalk, at whose end stands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woodbine quivering, are her arms and hands.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like rough-bark’d elm-boughs, or the russet skin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men late scourged for madness, or for sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like sun-parch’d quarters on the city gate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such is thy tann’d skin’s lamentable state;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like a bunch of ragged carrots stand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The short swollen fingers of thy gouty hand.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then like the chemic’s masculine equal fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which in the limbec’s warm womb doth inspire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into th’ earth’s worthless dirt a soul of gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such cherishing heat her best loved part doth hold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thine’s like the dread mouth of a fired gun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or like hot liquid metals newly run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into clay moulds, or like to that Aetna,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where round about the grass is burnt away.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are not your kisses then as filthy, and more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a worm sucking an envenom’d sore?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth not thy fearful hand in feeling quake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one which gathering flowers still fears a snake?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not your last act harsh and violent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As when a plough a stony ground doth rent?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So kiss good turtles, so devoutly nice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are priests in handling reverent sacrifice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nice in searching wounds the surgeon is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As we, when we embrace, or touch, or kiss.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leave her, and I will leave comparing thus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She and comparisons are odious.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}