{
 "id": "john-donne/to-his-mistress-going-to-bed",
 "title": "To His Mistress Going to Bed",
 "ordinal": "Elegy XIX",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "John Donne",
 "poet_slug": "john-donne",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems, &c. by John Donne, late Dean of St. Pauls, with Elegies on the Authors Death",
 "book_slug": "poems-1669",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Elegies",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1669,
  "venue": "Poems, &c. by John Donne, late Dean of St. Pauls, with Elegies on the Authors Death (1669)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_poems-_donne-john_1669"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-donne_poetry",
  "file": "elegies.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": "2026-08-15",
  "corrections": [
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    "was": 0,
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 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come, madam, come, all rest my powers defy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until I labour, I in labour lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is tired with standing, though he never fight.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glittering,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a far fairer world encompassing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unpin that spangled breastplate, which you wear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That th’ eyes of busy fools may be stopp’d there.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tells me from you that now it is bedtime.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Off with that happy busk, which I envy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As when from flowery meads th’ hill’s shadow steals.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Off with your wiry coronet, and show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hairy diadems which on you do grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Off with your hose and shoes; then softly tread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In such white robes heaven’s angels used to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Revealed to men; thou, angel, bring’st with thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heaven-like Muhammad’s paradise; and though",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By this these angels from an evil sprite;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Licence my roving hands, and let them go",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Before, behind, between, above, below.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, my America, my Newfoundland,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My kingdom, safest when with one man mann’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My mine of precious stones, my empery;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How am I blest in thus discovering thee!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To enter in these bonds, is to be free;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are like Atlanta’s ball cast in men’s views;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, when a fool’s eye lighteth on a gem,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His earthly soul might court that, not them.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For laymen, are all women thus array’d.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Themselves are only mystic books, which we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Whom their imputed grace will dignify⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must see reveal’d. Then, since that I may know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As liberally as to thy midwife show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thyself; cast all, yea, this white linen hence;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no penance due to innocence:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To teach thee, I am naked first; why then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What needst thou have more covering than a man?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}