{
 "id": "john-donne/the-primrose-being-at-montgomery-castle-upon-the-hill-on-which-it-is-s",
 "title": "The Primrose, Being at Montgomery Castle Upon the Hill, on Which It Is Situate",
 "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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Upon this Primrose hill,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, if heaven would distil",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "A shower of rain, each several drop might go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To his own primrose, and grow manna so;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where their form, and their infinity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make a terrestrial galaxy,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "As the small stars do in the sky;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I walk to find a true love; and I see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That ’tis not a mere woman, that is she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But must or more or less than woman be",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet know I not, which flower",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I wish; a six, or four;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "For should my truelove less than woman be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She were scarce anything; and then, should she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be more than woman, she would get above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All thought of sex, and think to move",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart to study her, and not to love.",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Both these were monsters; since there must reside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falsehood in woman, I could more abide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She were by art, than nature falsified.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Live, primrose, then, and thrive",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "With thy true number five;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And, woman, whom this flower doth represent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With this mysterious number be content;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ten is the farthest number; if half ten",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Belongs unto each woman, then",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Each woman may take half us men;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Or⁠—if this will not serve their turn⁠—since all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Numbers are odd, or even, and they fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First into five, women may take us all.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}