{
 "id": "john-donne/the-first-anniversary",
 "title": "An Anatomy of the World",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "The First Anniversary",
 "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": "An Anatomy of the World",
 "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": "an-anatomy-of-the-world.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": "2026-08-19",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
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  [
   {
    "text": "When that rich soul which to her heaven is gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom all do celebrate, who know they’ve one",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "—For who is sure he hath a soul, unless",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It see, and judge, and follow worthiness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by deeds praise it? he who doth not this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May lodge an inmate soul, but ’tis not his⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When that queen ended here her progress time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, as to her standing house, to heaven did climb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, loth to make the saints attend her long,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She’s now a part both of the choir and song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This world in that great earthquake languished;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For in a common bath of tears it bled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which drew the strongest vital spirits out.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But succour’d then with a perplexed doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether the world did lose, or gain in this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Because, since now no other way there is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But goodness, to see her, whom all would see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All must endeavour to be good as she⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This great consumption to a fever turn’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so the world had fits; it joy’d, it mourn’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as men think that agues physic are,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And th’ ague being spent, give over care;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So thou, sick world, mistakest thyself to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, when, alas! thou’rt in a lethargy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her death did wound and tame thee then, and then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou might’st have better spared the sun, or man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wound was deep, but ’tis more misery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thou hast lost thy sense and memory.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas heavy then to hear thy voice of moan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But this is worse, that thou art speechless grown.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast forgot thy name thou hadst; thou wast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nothing but she, and her thou hast o’erpast.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For, as a child kept from the fount, until",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A prince, expected long, come to fulfil",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ceremonies, thou unnamed hadst laid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had not her coming thee her palace made.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her name defined thee, gave thee form and frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou forget’st to celebrate thy name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some months she hath been dead⁠—but being dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Measures of time are all determined⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But long she hath been away, long, long, yet none",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Offers to tell us who it is that’s gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as in states doubtful of future heirs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When sickness without remedy impairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The present prince, they’re loth it should be said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The prince doth languish, or the prince is dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So mankind, feeling now a general thaw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A strong example gone, equal to law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cement, which did faithfully compact",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And glue all virtues, now resolved and slack’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thought it some blasphemy to say she was dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or that our weakness was discovered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that confession; therefore spoke no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than tongues, the soul being gone, the loss deplore.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But though it be too late to succour thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sick world, yea dead, yea putrefied, since she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy intrinsic balm and thy preservative,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can never be renew’d, thou never live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I⁠—since no man can make thee live⁠—will try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What we may gain by thy Anatomy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her death hath taught us dearly, that thou art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Corrupt and mortal in thy purest part.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let no man say, the world itself being dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis labour lost to have discovered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world’s infirmities, since there is none",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alive to study this dissection;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For there’s a kind of world remaining still;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though she, which did inanimate and fill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world, be gone, yet in this last long night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her ghost doth walk, that is, a glimmering light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A faint weak love of virtue and of good",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reflects from her, on them which understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her worth; and though she have shut in all day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The twilight of her memory doth stay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, from the carcase of the old world free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Creates a new world, and new creatures be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Produced; the matter and the stuff of this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her virtue, and the form our practice is.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, though to be thus elemented arm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These creatures from home-born intrinsic harm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—For all assumed unto this dignity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So many weedless paradises be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which of themselves produce no venomous sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except some foreign serpent bring it in⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet because outward storms the strongest break,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And strength itself by confidence grows weak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This new world may be safer, being told",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dangers and diseases of the old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For with due temper men do then forego,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or covet things, when they their true worth know.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no health; physicians say that we,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At best, enjoy but a neutrality.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And can there be worse sickness than to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That we are never well, nor can be so?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are born ruinous; poor mothers cry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That children come not right, nor orderly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except they headlong come and fall upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An ominous precipitation.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How witty’s ruin, how importunate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon mankind! it labour’d to frustrate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even God’s purpose, and made woman, sent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For man’s relief, cause of his languishment.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They were to good ends, and they are so still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But accessory, and principal in ill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that first marriage was our funeral;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One woman, at one blow, then kill’d us all;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And singly, one by one, they kill us now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We do delightfully ourselves allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To that consumption; and, profusely blind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We kill ourselves to propagate our kind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet we do not that; we are not men;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is not now that mankind which was then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When as the sun and man did seem to strive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Joint-tenants of the world⁠—who should survive;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When stag, and raven, and the long-lived tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Compared with man, died in minority;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When if a slow-paced star had stolen away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the observer’s marking, he might stay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two or three hundred years to see it again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then make up his observation plain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When, as the age was long, the size was great;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man’s growth confess’d, and recompensed the meat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So spacious and large, that every soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did a fair kingdom and large realm control;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when the very stature, thus erect,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did that soul a good way towards heaven direct.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where is this mankind now? who lives to age",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fit to be made Methusalem his page?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! we scarce live long enough to try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether a true-made clock run right, or lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old grandsires talk of yesterday with sorrow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for our children we reserve tomorrow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So short is life, that every peasant strives,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a torn house, or field, to have three lives;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as in lasting, so in length is man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Contracted to an inch, who was a span.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For had a man at first in forests stray’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or shipwreck’d in the sea, one would have laid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A wager, that an elephant or whale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That met him, would not hastily assail",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thing so equal to him; now, alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fairies and the pygmies well may pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As credible; mankind decays so soon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We’re scarce our fathers’ shadows cast at noon.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only death adds to our length; nor are grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In stature to be men, till we are none.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But this were light, did our less volume hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the old text; or had we changed to gold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their silver, or disposed into less glass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spirits of virtue, which then scatter’d was.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’tis not so; we’re not retired, but damp’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, as our bodies, so our minds are cramp’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis shrinking, not close weaving that hath thus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mind and body both bedwarfed us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We seem ambitious God’s whole work to undo;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of nothing He made us, and we strive too",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bring ourselves to nothing back; and we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do what we can to do ’t so soon as He.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With new diseases on ourselves we war,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with new physic, a worse engine far.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This man, this world’s vice-emperor, in whom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All faculties, all graces are at home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—And if in other creatures they appear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re but man’s ministers and legates there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To work on their rebellions, and reduce",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Them to civility, and to man’s use⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This man, whom God did woo, and, loth to attend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till man came up, did down to man descend;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This man so great, that all that is, is his,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, what a trifle, and poor thing he is!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If man were anything, he’s nothing now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Help, or at least some time to waste, allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To his other wants, yet when he did depart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With her whom we lament, he lost his heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, of whom th’ ancients seemed to prophesy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When they called virtues by the name of she;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, in whom virtue was so much refined,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That for allay unto so pure a mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She took the weaker sex; she that could drive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poisonous tincture, and the stain of Eve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of her thoughts and deeds, and purify",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All by a true religious alchemy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st how poor a trifling thing man is,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart being perish’d, no part can be free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that except thou feed, not banquet, on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The supernatural food, religion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy better growth grows withered and scant;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be more than man, or thou’rt less than an ant.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then as mankind, so is the world’s whole frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quite out of joint, almost created lame;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For before God had made up all the rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Corruption enter’d and depraved the best.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It seized the angels, and then first of all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world did in her cradle take a fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And turn’d her brains, and took a general maim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wronging each joint of th’ universal frame.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The noblest part, man, felt it first; and then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both beasts and plants, cursed in the curse of man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So did the world from the first hour decay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That evening was beginning of the day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now the springs and summers which we see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like sons of women after fifty be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And new philosophy calls all in doubt;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The element of fire is quite put out;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun is lost, and th’ earth, and no man’s wit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can well direct him where to look for it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And freely men confess that this world’s spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When in the planets, and the firmament",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They seek so many new; they see that this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is crumbled out again to his atomies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All just supply, and all relation.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prince, subject, father, son, are things forgot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For every man alone thinks he hath got",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be a phoenix, and that then can be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None of that kind of which he is, but he.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is the world’s condition now, and now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She that should all parts to reunion bow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She that had all magnetic force alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To draw and fasten sunder’d parts in one;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She whom wise nature had invented then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When she observed that every sort of men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did in their voyage in this world’s sea stray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And needed a new compass for their way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She that was best, and first original",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all fair copies, and the general",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Steward to fate; she whose rich eyes and breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gilt the West Indies, and perfumed the East;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose having breathed in this world did bestow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spice on those isles, and bade them still smell so;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that rich Indy, which doth gold inter,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is but as single money coin’d from her;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She to whom this world must itself refer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As suburbs, or the microcosm of her;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st how lame a cripple this world is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That this world’s general sickness doth not lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In any humour, or one certain part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as thou saw’st it, rotten at the heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou seest a hectic fever hath got hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the whole substance, not to be controll’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that thou hast but one way, not to admit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world’s infection⁠—to be none of it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the world’s subtlest immaterial parts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feel this consuming wound and age’s darts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the world’s beauty is decay’d, or gone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Beauty; that’s colour and proportion.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We think the heavens enjoy their spherical,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their round proportion, embracing all;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But yet their various and perplexed course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Observed in divers ages, doth enforce",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men to find out so many eccentric parts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such diverse downright lines, such overthwarts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As disproportion that pure form; it tears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The firmament in eight-and-forty shares,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in these constellations then arise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New stars, and old do vanish from our eyes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though heaven suffered earthquakes, peace or war,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When new towers rise, and old demolish’d are.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have impaled within a zodiac",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The freeborn sun, and keep twelve signs awake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To watch his steps; the Goat and Crab control,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fright him back, who else to either pole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did not these tropics fetter him, might run.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For his course is not round, nor can the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perfect a circle, or maintain his way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One inch direct; but where he rose today",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He comes no more, but with a cozening line,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Steals by that point, and so is serpentine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seeming weary with his reeling thus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He means to sleep, being now fallen nearer us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So of the stars which boast that they do run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In circle still, none ends where he begun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All their proportion’s lame, it sinks, it swells;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For of meridians and parallels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man hath weaved out a net, and this net thrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the heavens, and now they are his own.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loth to go up the hill, or labour thus",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To go to heaven, we make heaven come to us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We spur, we rein the stars, and in their race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re diversely content to obey our pace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But keeps the earth her round proportion still?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth not a Teneriffe or higher hill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rise so high like a rock, that one might think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The floating moon would shipwreck there and sink?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seas are so deep that whales, being struck today,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance tomorrow scarce at middle way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of their wish’d journey’s end, the bottom, die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And men, to sound depths, so much line untie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As one might justly think that there would rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At end thereof one of th’ antipodes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If under all a vault infernal be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Which sure is spacious, except that we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Invent another torment, that there must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Millions into a straight hot room be thrust⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then solidness and roundness have no place.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are these but warts and pockholes in the face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of th’ earth? Think so; but yet confess, in this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world’s proportion disfigured is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That those two legs whereon it doth rely,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reward and punishment, are bent awry.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, O, it can no more be questioned,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That beauty’s best proportion is dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since even grief itself, which now alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is left us, is without proportion.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, by whose lines proportion should be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Examined, measure of all symmetry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom had that ancient seen, who thought souls made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of harmony, he would at next have said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That harmony was she, and thence infer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That souls were but resultances from her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And did from her into our bodies go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to our eyes the forms from objects flow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who if those great doctors truly said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That th’ ark to man’s proportion was made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had been a type for that, as that might be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A type of her in this, that contrary",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both elements and passions lived at peace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her, who caused all civil war to cease.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, after whom what form soe’er we see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is discord and rude incongruity;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st how ugly a monster this world is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That here is nothing to enamour thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that not only faults in inward parts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Corruptions in our brains, or in our hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poisoning the fountains whence our actions spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Endanger us; but that if everything",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be not done fitly and in proportion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To satisfy wise and good lookers-on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Since most men be such as most think they be⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re loathsome too, by this deformity.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For good, and well, must in our actions meet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But beauty’s other second element,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Colour and lustre, now is as near spent.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And had the world his just proportion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were it a ring still, yet the stone is gone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a compassionate turquoise, which doth tell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By looking pale, the wearer is not well;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As gold falls sick being stung with mercury,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the world’s parts of such complexion be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When nature was most busy, the first week,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swaddling the newborn earth, God seem’d to like",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she should sport herself sometimes, and play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To mingle and vary colours every day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, as though she could not make enow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Himself his various rainbow did allow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sight is the noblest sense of any one;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet sight hath only colour to feed on,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And colour is decay’d; summer’s robe grows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dusky, and like an oft dyed garment shows.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our blushing red, which used in cheeks to spread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is inward sunk, and only our souls are red.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance the world might have recovered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If she whom we lament had not been dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But she, in whom all white, and red, and blue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Beauty’s ingredients) voluntary grew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in an unvex’d paradise; from whom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did all things’ verdure, and their lustre come;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose composition was miraculous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being all colour, all diaphanous,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For air and fire but thick gross bodies were,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And liveliest stones but drowsy and pale to her;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st how wan a ghost this our world is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it should more affright than pleasure thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that, since all fair colour then did sink,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis now but wicked vanity, to think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To colour vicious deeds with good pretence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or with bought colours to illude men’s sense.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor in ought more this world’s decay appears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than that her influence the heaven forbears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or that the elements do not feel this.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The father or the mother barren is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The clouds conceive not rain, or do not pour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the due birth-time, down the balmy shower;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ air doth not motherly sit on the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hatch her seasons, and give all things birth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spring-times were common cradles, but are tombs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And false conceptions fill the general wombs.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ air shows such meteors, as none can see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not only what they mean, but what they be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth such new worms, as would have troubled much",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ Egyptian Mages to have made more such.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What artist now dares boast that he can bring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven hither, or constellate anything,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So as the influence of those stars may be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imprison’d in an herb, or charm, or tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And do by touch, all which those stars could do?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The art is lost, and correspondence too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For heaven gives little, and the earth takes less,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And man least knows their trade and purposes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If this commerce ’twixt heaven and earth were not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Embarr’d, and all this traffic quite forgot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, for whose loss we have lamented thus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would work more fully, and powerfully on us.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since herbs and roots by dying lose not all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But they, yea ashes too, are medicinal;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Death could not quench her virtue so, but that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It would be⁠—if not follow’d⁠—wonder’d at;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the world would be one dying swan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sing her funeral praise, and vanish then.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as some serpents’ poison hurteth not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Except it be from the live serpent shot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So doth her virtue need her here, to fit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That unto us, she working more than it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But she, in whom to such maturity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue was grown, past growth, that it must die;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, from whose influence all impression came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But by receivers’ impotencies lame;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, though she could not transubstantiate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All states to gold, yet gilded every state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So that some princes have some temperance;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some counsellors, some purpose to advance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The common profit; and some people have",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some stay, no more than kings should give, to crave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some women have some taciturnity;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some nunneries some grains of chastity;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, that did thus much, and much more could do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that our age was iron, and rusty too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is dead; she’s dead; when thou know’st this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st how dry a cinder this world is;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And learn’st thus much by our Anatomy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That ’tis in vain to dew, or mollify",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It with thy tears, or sweat, or blood; nothing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is worth our travail, grief, or perishing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But those rich joys which did possess her heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which she’s now partaker, and a part.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as in cutting up a man that’s dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The body will not last out, to have read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On every part, and therefore men direct",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their speech to parts that are of most effect;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So the world’s carcase would not last, if I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were punctual in this Anatomy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor smells it well to hearers, if one tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Them their disease, who fain would think they’re well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here therefore be the end; and blessed maid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of whom is meant whatever has been said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or shall be spoken well by any tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose name refines coarse lines, and makes prose song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Accept this tribute, and his first year’s rent;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who till his dark short taper’s end be spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As oft as thy feast sees this widow’d earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will yearly celebrate thy second birth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is, thy death; for though the soul of man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be got when man is made, ’tis born but then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When man doth die; our body’s as the womb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as a midwife death directs it home.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you, her creatures, whom she works upon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And have your last and best concoction",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From her example and her virtue, if you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In reverence to her do think it due,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That no one should her praises thus rehearse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As matter fit for chronicle, not verse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vouchsafe to call to mind that God did make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A last and lasting’st piece, a song. He spake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Moses to deliver unto all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That song, because He knew they would let fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The law, the prophets, and the history,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But keep the song still in their memory.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such an opinion, in due measure, made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me this great office boldly to invade;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor could incomprehensibleness deter",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me from thus trying to imprison her;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which when I saw that a strict grave could do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw not why verse might not do so too.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Verse hath a middle nature; heaven keeps souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grave keeps bodies, verse the fame enrolls.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ],
 "notes": [
  {
   "id": "split-of-welded-anniversary",
   "kind": "defect",
   "raised": "2026-08-19",
   "what": "defects.py sections flagged this record on TO THE PRAISE OF THE DEAD, ANATOMY, AN ANATOMY OF THE WORLD, THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY, and A FUNERAL ELEGY. Chambers vol. 2 contents lists three poems under An Anatomy of the World. Hall’s prefatory poem and A Funeral Elegy are now separate records. This record keeps the slug the-first-anniversary; the printed inner heading is An Anatomy of the World, subtitle The First Anniversary.",
   "consequence": "Split. Hall’s poem carries attribution. site_ready stays false. The flag list is not the split list.",
   "to_settle": "Nothing on the verse.",
   "checked_against": [
    "https://archive.org/details/poemswithelegie01chamgoog",
    "https://github.com/standardebooks/john-donne_poetry"
   ]
  }
 ]
}