{
 "id": "john-donne/the-ecstacy",
 "title": "The Ecstacy",
 "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": "Songs and Sonnets",
 "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": "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": 76,
  "n_stanzas": 19,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Where, like a pillow on a bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A pregnant bank swell’d up, to rest",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The violet’s reclining head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sat we two, one another’s best.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our hands were firmly cemented",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By a fast balm, which thence did spring;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our eyes upon one double string.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So to engraft our hands, as yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was all the means to make us one;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And pictures in our eyes to get",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was all our propagation.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As, ’twixt two equal armies, Fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suspends uncertain victory,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our souls⁠—which to advance their state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were gone out⁠—hung ’twixt her and me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And whilst our souls negotiate there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We like sepulchral statues lay;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All day, the same our postures were,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we said nothing, all the day.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If any, so by love refined,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he soul’s language understood,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And by good love were grown all mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within convenient distance stood,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He⁠—though he knew not which soul spake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because both meant, both spake the same⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Might thence a new concoction take,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And part far purer than he came.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This ecstacy doth unperplex",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(We said) and tell us what we love;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We see by this, it was not sex;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We see, we saw not, what did move:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But as all several souls contain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mixture of things they know not what,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Love these mix’d souls doth mix again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And makes both one, each this, and that.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A single violet transplant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The strength, the colour, and the size⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All which before was poor and scant⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Redoubles still, and multiplies.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When love with one another so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Interanimates two souls,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That abler soul, which thence doth flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Defects of loneliness controls.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We then, who are this new soul, know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what we are composed, and made,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For th’ atomies of which we grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are souls, whom no change can invade.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, O alas! so long, so far,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our bodies why do we forbear?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are ours, though not we; we are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ intelligences, they the spheres.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We owe them thanks, because they thus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did us, to us, at first convey,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yielded their senses’ force to us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor are dross to us, but allay.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "On man heaven’s influence works not so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that it first imprints the air;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For soul into the soul may flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it to body first repair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As our blood labours to beget",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spirits, as like souls as it can;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Because such fingers need to knit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That subtle knot, which makes us man;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So must pure lovers’ souls descend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To affections, and to faculties,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which sense may reach and apprehend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Else a great prince in prison lies.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To our bodies turn we then, that so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weak men on love reveal’d may look;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But yet the body is his book.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And if some lover, such as we,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have heard this dialogue of one,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let him still mark us, he shall see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Small change when we’re to bodies gone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}