{
 "id": "john-donne/the-second-anniversary",
 "title": "Of the Progress of the Soul",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": "The Second 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"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 528,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nothing could make me sooner to confess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That this world had an everlastingness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than to consider, that a year is run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since both this lower world’s, and the sun’s sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lustre and the vigour of this all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did set; ’twere blasphemy to say, did fall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as a ship, which hath struck sail, doth run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By force of that force which before it won;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as sometimes in a beheaded man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though at those two Red Seas, which freely ran,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One from the trunk, another from the head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His soul be sail’d to her eternal bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His eyes will twinkle, and his tongue will roll,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As though he beckon’d and call’d back his soul:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He grasps his hands, and he pulls up his feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And seems to reach, and to step forth to meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His soul; when all these motions which we saw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are but as ice, which crackles at a thaw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as a lute, which in moist weather rings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her knell alone, by cracking of her strings.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So struggles this dead world, now she is gone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For there is motion in corruption.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As some days are, at the creation, named",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before the sun, the which framed days, was framed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So after this sun’s set, some show appears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And orderly vicissitude of years.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet a new deluge, and of Lethe flood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath drown’d us all; all have forgot all good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgetting her, the main reserve of all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet in this deluge, gross and general,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou seest me strive for life; my life shall be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be hereafter praised, for praising thee.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immortal maid, who though thou wouldst refuse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The name of mother, be unto my Muse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A father, since her chaste ambition is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yearly to bring forth such a child as this.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These hymns may work on future wits, and so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May great-grandchildren of thy praises grow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so, though not revive, embalm and spice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world, which else would putrify with vice.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For thus man may extend thy progeny,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until man do but vanish, and not die.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These hymns thy issue may increase so long,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As till God’s great Venite change the song.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thirst for that time, O my insatiate soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And serve thy thirst with God’s safe-sealing bowl;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thirsty still, and drink still till thou go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To th’ only health; to be hydroptic so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forget this rotten world; and unto thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let thine own times as an old story be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be not concern’d; study not why nor when;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do not so much as not believe a man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For though to err, be worst, to try truths forth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is far more business than this world is worth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The world is but a carcass; thou art fed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By it, but as a worm that carcass bred;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why shouldst thou, poor worm, consider more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When this world will grow better than before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than those thy fellow-worms do think upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That carcass’s last resurrection?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forget this world, and scarce think of it so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As of old clothes cast off a year ago.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be thus stupid is alacrity;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men thus lethargic have best memory.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look upward; that’s towards her, whose happy state",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We now lament not, but congratulate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, to whom all this world was but a stage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all sat hearkening how her youthful age",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should be employ’d, because in all she did",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some figure of the golden times was hid.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who could not lack, whate’er this world give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because she was the form that made it live;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor could complain that this world was unfit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be stay’d in, then when she was in it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, that first tried indifferent desires",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By virtue, and virtue by religious fires;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, to whose person paradise adhered, could",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As courts to princes; she, whose eyes ensphered",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Starlight enough to have made the South control",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Had she been there⁠—the star-full Northern Pole;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she is gone; she’s gone; when thou know’st this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What fragmentary rubbish this world is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st, and that it is not worth a thought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He honours it too much that thinks it nought.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think then, my soul, that death is but a groom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which brings a taper to the outward room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whence thou spiest first a little glimmering light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after brings it nearer to thy sight;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For such approaches doth heaven make in death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thyself labouring now with broken breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think those broken and soft notes to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Division, and thy happiest harmony.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thee laid on thy deathbed, loose and slack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think that but unbinding of a pack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take one precious thing, thy soul, from thence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thyself parch’d with fever’s violence;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Anger thine ague more, by calling it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy physic; chide the slackness of the fit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that thou hear’st thy knell, and think no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that, as bells call’d thee to church before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So this to the triumphant church calls thee.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think Satan’s sergeants round about thee be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think that but for legacies they thrust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give one thy pride, to another give thy lust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give them those sins which they gave thee before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trust th’ immaculate blood to wash thy score.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thy friends weeping round, and think that they",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Weep but because they go not yet thy way.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that they close thine eyes, and think in this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they confess much in the world amiss,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who dare not trust a dead man’s eye with that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which they from God and angels cover not.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that they shroud thee up, and think from thence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They reinvest thee in white innocence.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that thy body rots, and⁠—if so low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy soul exalted so, thy thoughts can go⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thee a prince, who of themselves create",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Worms, which insensibly devour their state.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that they bury thee, and think that rite",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lays thee to sleep but a Saint Lucy’s night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think these things cheerfully, and if thou be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drowsy, or slack, remember then that she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, whose complexion was so even made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That which of her ingredients should invade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The other three, no fear, no art could guess;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So far were all removed from more or less;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—But as in mithridate, or just perfumes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all good things being met, no one presumes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To govern, or to triumph on the rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only because all were, no part was, best;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as, though all do know, that quantities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are made of lines, and lines from points arise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None can these lines or quantities unjoint",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And say, this is a line, or this a point;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So though the elements and humours were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In her, one could not say, this governs there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose even constitution might have won",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Any disease to venture on the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rather than her; and make a spirit fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he to disuniting subject were;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To whose proportions if we would compare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cubes, they are unstable, circles, angular⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She who was such a chain as fate employs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bring mankind all fortunes it enjoys;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So fast, so even wrought, as one would think,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No accident could threaten any link;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she embraced a sickness, gave it meat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The purest blood, and breath, that e’er it eat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hath taught us, that though a good man hath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Title to heaven, and plead it by his faith,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though he may pretend a conquest, since",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven was content to suffer violence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea though he plead a long possession too",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—For they’re in heaven on earth who heaven’s works do⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though he had right and power and place, before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet death must usher, and unlock the door.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think further on thyself, my soul, and think",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How thou at first wast made but in a sink.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that it argued some infirmity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That those two souls, which then thou found’st in me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou fed’st upon, and drew’st into thee both",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My second soul of sense, and first of growth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think but how poor thou wast, how obnoxious;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom a small lump of flesh could poison thus.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This curded milk, this poor unlitter’d whelp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My body, could, beyond escape or help,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Infect thee with original sin, and thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Couldst neither then refuse, nor leave it now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that no stubborn, sullen anchorite,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which fix’d to a pillar, or a grave, doth sit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bedded and bathed in all his ordures, dwells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So foully as our souls in their first-built cells.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "After, enabled but to suck, and cry.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A province pack’d up in two yards of skin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that a rusty piece, discharged, is flown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In pieces, and the bullet is his own,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And freely flies; this to thy soul allow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And think this slow-paced soul which late did cleave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To a body, and went but by the body’s leave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twenty perchance, or thirty mile a day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dispatches in a minute all the way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twixt heaven and earth; she stays not in the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To look what meteors there themselves prepare;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She carries no desire to know, nor sense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether th’ air’s middle region be intense;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For th’ element of fire, she doth not know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether she pass’d by such a place or no;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She baits not at the moon, nor cares to try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether in that new world men live, and die;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Venus retards her not to inquire, how she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can⁠—being one star⁠—Hesper and Vesper be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He that charm’d Argus’ eyes, sweet Mercury,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Works not on her, who now is grown all eye;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who if she meet the body of the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Goes through, not staying till his course be run;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who finds in Mars his camp no corps of guard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor is by Jove, nor by his father barr’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ere she can consider how she went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At once is at, and through the firmament;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as these stars were but so many beads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strung on one string, speed undistinguish’d leads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her through those spheres, as through the beads a string,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose quick succession makes it still one thing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As doth the pith, which, lest our bodies slack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strings fast the little bones of neck and back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So by the soul doth death string heaven and earth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For when our soul enjoys this her third birth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Creation gave her one, a second, grace⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven is as near and present to her face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As colours are and objects, in a room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where darkness was before, when tapers come.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This must, my soul, thy long-short progress be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To advance these thoughts; remember then that she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, whose fair body no such prison was,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that a soul might well be pleased to pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An age in her; she, whose rich beauty lent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mintage to other beauties, for they went",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But for so much as they were like to her;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, in whose body⁠—if we dare prefer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This low world to so high a mark as she⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The western treasure, eastern spicery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Europe, and Afric, and the unknown rest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were easily found, or what in them was best;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—And when we have made this large discovery",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all, in her some one part then will be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twenty such parts, whose plenty and riches is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough to make twenty such worlds as this⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, whom had they known, who did first betroth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tutelar angels, and assign’d one, both",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To nations, cities, and to companies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To functions, offices, and dignities,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to each several man, to him, and him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They would have given her one for every limb;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, of whose soul, if we may say, ’twas gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her body was th’ electrum, and did hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many degrees of that; we understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That one might almost say, her body thought;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she thus richly and largely housed, is gone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And chides us slow-paced snails who crawl upon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our prison’s prison, earth, nor think us well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Longer than whilst we bear our brittle shell.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’twere but little to have changed our room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If, as we were in this our living tomb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oppress’d with ignorance, we still were so.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor soul, in this thy flesh what dost thou know?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou know’st thyself so little, as thou know’st not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How thou didst die, nor how thou wast begot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou neither know’st how thou at first camest in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor how thou took’st the poison of man’s sin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor dost thou⁠—though thou know’st that thou art So⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By what way thou art made immortal, know.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art too narrow, wretch, to comprehend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even thyself, yea though thou wouldst but bend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To know thy body. Have not all souls thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For many ages, that our bodies wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of air, and fire, and other elements?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now they think of new ingredients;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one soul thinks one, and another way",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another thinks, and ’tis an even lay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know’st thou but how the stone doth enter in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bladder’s cave, and never break the skin?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know’st thou how blood, which to the heart doth flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth from one ventricle to th’ other go?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the putrid stuff which thou dost spit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know’st thou how thy lungs have attracted it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are no passages, so that there is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—For aught thou know’st⁠—piercing of substances.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And of those many opinions which men raise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of nails and hairs, dost thou know which to praise?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What hope have we to know ourselves, when we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know not the least things which for our use be?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We see in authors, too stiff to recant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A hundred controversies of an ant;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet one watches, starves, freezes, and sweats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To know but catechisms and alphabets",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of unconcerning things, matters of fact,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How others on our stage their parts did act,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What Caesar did, yea, and what Cicero said.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why grass is green, or why our blood is red,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are mysteries which none have reach’d unto.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this low form, poor soul, what wilt thou do?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When wilt thou shake off this pedantry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of being taught by sense and fantasy?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou look’st through spectacles; small things seem great",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Below; but up unto the watchtower get,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And see all things despoil’d of fallacies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou shalt not peep through lattices of eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor hear through labyrinths of ears, nor learn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By circuit or collections to discern.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In heaven thou straight know’st all concerning it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what concerns it not shalt straight forget.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There thou⁠—but in no other school⁠—may’st be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance, as learned and as full as she;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who all libraries had throughly read",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At home in her own thoughts, and practisèd",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So much good as would make as many more;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, whose example they must all implore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who would, or do, or think well, and confess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That all the virtuous actions they express",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are but a new and worse edition",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of her some one thought or one action;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who in th’ art of knowing heaven, was grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here upon earth to such perfection,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she hath, ever since to heaven she came",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—In a far fairer print⁠—but read the same;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she not satisfied with all this weight⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For so much knowledge as would over-freight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another, did but ballast her⁠—is gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As well to enjoy, as get perfection;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And calls us after her, in that she took",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Taking herself) our best and worthiest book.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Return not, my soul, from this ecstasy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And meditation of what thou shalt be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To earthly thoughts, till it to thee appear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With whom thy conversation must be there.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With whom wilt thou converse? what station",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Canst thou choose out, free from infection,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That will not give thee theirs, nor drink in thine?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shalt thou not find a spongy slack divine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drink and suck in th’ instructions of great men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for the word of God vent them again?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are there not some courts⁠—and then, no things be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So like as courts⁠—which in this let us see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wits and tongues of libellers are weak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because they do more ill than these can speak?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poison’s gone through all; poisons affect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chiefly the chiefest parts, but some effect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In nails, and hairs, yea excrements, will show;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So lies the poison of sin in the most low.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up, up, my drowsy soul, where thy new ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall in the angels’ songs no discord hear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where thou shalt see the blessed mother-maid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy in not being that which men have said;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where she’s exalted, more for being good",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than for her interest of motherhood;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to those patriarchs, which did longer sit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Expecting Christ, than they’ve enjoy’d Him yet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to those prophets, which now gladly see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their prophecies grown to be history;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to th’ apostles, who did bravely run",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the sun’s course, with more light than the sun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to those martyrs, who did calmly bleed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oil to th’ apostles’ lamps, dew to their seed;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to those virgins, who thought that almost",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They made joint-tenants with the Holy Ghost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If they to any should His temple give;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up, up, for in that squadron there doth live",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who hath carried thither new degrees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to their number, to their dignities;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who being to herself a state, enjoy’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All royalties which any state employ’d;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For she made wars, and triumph’d; reason still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did not o’erthrow, but rectify her will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she made peace, for no peace is like this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That beauty and chastity together kiss.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She did high justice, for she crucified",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every first motion of rebellious pride.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she gave pardons, and was liberal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For, only herself except, she pardon’d all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She coin’d, in this, that her impression gave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To all our actions all the worth they have.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She gave protections; the thoughts of her breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Satan’s rude officers could ne’er arrest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As these prerogatives being met in one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made her a sovereign state, religion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made her a church; and these two made her all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She who was all this All, and could not fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To worse, by company, for she was still",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More antidote than all the world was ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, she doth leave it, and by death survive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All this, in heaven; whither who doth not strive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The more, because she’s there, he doth not know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That accidental joys in heaven do grow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But pause, my soul, and study, ere thou fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On accidental joys, th’ essential.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still, before accessories do abide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A trial, must the principal be tried.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what essential joy canst thou expect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here upon earth? what permanent effect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of transitory causes? Dost thou love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beauty⁠—and beauty worthiest is to move⁠—?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor cozened cozener, that she, and that thou,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which did begin to love, are neither now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are both fluid, changed since yesterday;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Next day repairs⁠—but ill⁠—last day’s decay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor are⁠—although the river keep the name⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yesterday’s waters and today’s the same.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So flows her face, and thine eyes; neither now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That saint nor pilgrim, which your loving vow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Concern’d, remains; but whilst you think you be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Constant, you’re hourly in inconstancy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honour may have pretence unto our love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because that God did live so long above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without this honour, and then loved it so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That He at last made creatures to bestow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honour on Him, not that He needed it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that to His hands man might grow more fit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But since all honours from inferiors flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—For they do give it; princes do but show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom they would have so honour’d⁠—and that this",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On such opinions and capacities",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is built, as rise and fall to more and less;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas! ’tis but a casual happiness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath ever any man to himself assigned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This or that happiness to arrest his mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that another man which takes a worse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinks him a fool for having ta’en that course?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They who did labour Babel’s tower to erect,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might have considered, that for that effect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All this whole solid earth could not allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor furnish forth materials enow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that his centre, to raise such a place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was far too little to have been the base.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No more affords this world foundation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To erect true joy, were all the means in one;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But as the heathen made them several gods",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all God’s benefits, and all His rods",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—For as the wine, and corn, and onions are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gods unto them, so agues be, and war⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as by changing that whole precious gold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To such small copper coins, they lost the old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lost their only God, who ever must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be sought alone, and not in such a thrust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So much mankind true happiness mistakes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No joy enjoys that man, that many makes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, soul, to thy first pitch work up again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know that all lines which circles do contain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For once that they the centre touch, do touch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twice the circumference; and be thou such,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Double on heaven thy thoughts on earth employ’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—All will not serve; only who have enjoy’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sight of God in fullness can think it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For it is both the object and the wit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is essential joy, where neither He",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can suffer diminution, nor we;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis such a full, and such a filling good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had th’ angels once look’d on Him, they had stood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fill the place of one of them, or more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She whom we celebrate is gone before;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who had here so much essential joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As no chance could distract, much less destroy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who with God’s presence was acquainted so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Hearing and speaking to Him⁠—as to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His face in any natural stone or tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Better than when in images they be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who kept, by diligent devotion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God’s image in such reparation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within her heart, that what decay was grown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was her first parents’ fault, and not her own;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, being solicited to any act,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still heard God pleading His safe precontract;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who by a faithful confidence, was here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betroth’d to God, and now is married there;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose twilights were more clear than our midday;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who dreamt devoutlier than most use to pray;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, being here fill’d with grace, yet strove to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both where more grace and more capacity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At once is given; she to heaven is gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who made this world in some proportion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heaven, and here became unto us all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy⁠—as our joys admit⁠—essential.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But could this low world joys essential touch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven’s accidental joys would pass them much.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How poor and lame must then our casual be?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If thy prince will his subjects to call thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My lord, and this do swell thee, thou art then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By being greater, grown to be less man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When no physician of redress can speak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A joyful casual violence may break",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dangerous aposthume in thy breast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And whilst thou joyest in this, the dangerous rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bag, may rise up, and so strangle thee.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whate’er was casual, may ever be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What should the nature change? or make the same",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Certain, which was but casual, when it came?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All casual joy doth loud and plainly say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only by coming, that it can away.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only in heaven joy’s strength is never spent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And accidental things are permanent.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy of a soul’s arrival ne’er decays,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that soul ever joys and ever stays.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy that their last great consummation",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Approaches in the resurrection,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When earthly bodies more celestial",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be, than angels’ were, for they could fall;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This kind of joy doth every day admit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Degrees of growth, but none of losing it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this fresh joy, ’tis no small part that she,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, in whose goodness he that names degree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth injure her⁠—’tis loss to be called best",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There, where the stuff is not such as the rest⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who left such a body, as even she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only in heaven could learn how it can be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made better; for she rather was two souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or like to full on both sides written rolls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where eyes might read upon the outward skin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As strong records for God as minds within;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She, who by making full perfection grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pieces a circle, and still keeps it so;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long’d for, and longing for ’t, to heaven is gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where she receives, and gives addition.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Here, in a place where mis-devotion frames",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thousand prayers to saints, whose very names",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ancient Church knew not, Heaven knows not yet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where what laws of poetry admit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laws of religion have at least the same;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Immortal maid, I might invoke thy name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could any saint provoke that appetite,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou here should’st make me a French convertite.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But thou would’st not; nor would’st thou be content,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take this, for my second year’s true rent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did this coin bear any other stamp than His,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That gave thee power to do, me to say this.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since His will is, that to posterity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou should’st for life and death a pattern be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that the world should notice have of this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The purpose and th’ authority is His.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art the proclamation; and I am",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trumpet, at whose voice the people came.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ],
 "notes": [
  {
   "id": "split-of-welded-anniversary",
   "kind": "defect",
   "raised": "2026-08-19",
   "what": "defects.py sections flagged this record on THE HARBINGER TO THE PROGRESS, OF THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL, THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY, and a running head. Chambers vol. 2 contents lists Hall’s Harbinger and this poem. The slug the-second-anniversary is kept because john-donne/the-progress-of-the-soul is already Infinitati Sacrum. The closing paragraph stays in this poem: Standard Ebooks prints it as a second verse paragraph of the same section, and extract stored it as a second stanza.",
   "consequence": "Split. Hall’s Harbinger is a separate record with 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"
   ]
  }
 ]
}