{
 "id": "john-donne/the-curse",
 "title": "The Curse",
 "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-1635",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "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": "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Whoever guesses, thinks, or dreams, he knows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who is my mistress, wither by this curse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Him, only for his purse,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "May some dull whore to love dispose,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And then yield unto all that are his foes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May he be scorn’d by one, whom all else scorn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Forswear to others, what to her he hath sworn,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With fear of missing, shame of getting, torn.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Madness his sorrow, gout his cramps, may he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make, by but thinking who hath made them such;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And may he feel no touch",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Of conscience, but of fame, and be",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Anguish’d, not that ’twas sin, but that ’twas she;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or may he for her virtue reverence",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One that hates him only for impotence,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And equal traitors be she and his sense.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "May he dream treason, and believe that he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meant to perform it, and confess, and die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And no record tell why;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "His sons, which none of his may be,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Inherit nothing but his infamy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or may he so long parasites have fed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That he would fain be theirs whom he hath bred,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And at the last be circumcised for bread.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The venom of all stepdames, gamesters’ gall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What tyrants and their subjects interwish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What plants, mine, beasts, fowl, fish,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Can contribute, all ill, which all",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Prophets or poets spake, and all which shall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be annex’d in schedules unto this by me,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall on that man; for if it be a she",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nature beforehand hath out-cursèd me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}