{
 "id": "john-donne/the-cross",
 "title": "The Cross",
 "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": "Divine Poems",
 "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": {
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  "file": "divine-poems.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)"
 },
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  "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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  [
   {
    "text": "Since Christ embraced the cross itself, dare I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His image, th’ image of His cross, deny?",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Would I have profit by the sacrifice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dare the chosen altar to despise?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It bore all other sins, but is it fit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it should bear the sin of scorning it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who from the picture would avert his eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How would he fly his pains who there did die?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From me no pulpit, nor misgrounded law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor scandal taken, shall this cross withdraw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It shall not, for it cannot; for the loss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of this cross were to me another cross.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Better were worse, for no affliction,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No cross is so extreme, as to have none.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who can blot out the cross, which th’ instrument",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of God dew’d on me in the Sacrament?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who can deny me power, and liberty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swim, and at every stroke thou art thy cross;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mast and yard make one, where seas do toss;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look down, thou spiest out crosses in small things;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look up, thou seest birds raised on crossed wings;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the globe’s frame, and spheres, is nothing else",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the meridians crossing parallels.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Material crosses then good physic be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But yet spiritual have chief dignity.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These for extracted chemic medicine serve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cure much better, and as well preserve.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then are you your own physic, or need none,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When still’d or purged by tribulation;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For when that cross ungrudged unto you sticks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then are you to yourself a crucifix.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As perchance carvers do not faces make,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that away, which hid them there, do take;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let crosses, so, take what hid Christ in thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be His image, or not His, but He.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, as oft alchemists do coiners prove,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So may a self-despising get self-love;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, as worst surfeits of best meats be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So is pride, issued from humility,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For ’tis no child, but monster; therefore cross",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your joy in crosses, else ’tis double loss.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cross thy senses, else both they and thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must perish soon, and to destruction bow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For if the eye seek good objects, and will take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No cross from bad, we cannot ’scape a snake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So with harsh, hard, sour, stinking; cross the rest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make them indifferent; call, nothing best.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But most the eye needs crossing, that can roam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And move; to th’ others th’ objects must come home.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cross thy heart; for that in man alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pants downwards, and hath palpitation.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cross those dejections, when it downward tends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when it to forbidden heights pretends.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as the brain through bony walls doth vent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By sutures, which a cross’s form present,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So when thy brain works, ere thou utter it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cross and correct concupiscence of wit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be covetous of crosses; let none fall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cross no man else, but cross thyself in all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then doth the cross of Christ work faithfully",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within our hearts, when we love harmlessly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cross’s pictures much, and with more care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That cross’s children, which our crosses are.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}