{
 "id": "john-donne/to-mr-basil-brooke",
 "title": "To Mr. Basil Brooke",
 "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": "Letters to Several Personages",
 "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": "letters-to-several-personages.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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Is not thy sacred hunger of science",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet satisfied? is not thy brain’s rich hive",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fulfill’d with honey, which thou dost derive",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From the arts’ spirits and their quintessence?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then wean thyself at last, and thee withdraw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Cambridge thy old nurse, and, as the rest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Here toughly chew, and sturdily digest",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Th’ immense vast volumes of our common law.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And begin soon, lest my grief grieve thee too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which is, that that, which I should have begun",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In my youth’s morning, now late must be done;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I, as giddy travellers must do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Light and strength, dark and tired must then ride post.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If thou unto thy Muse be married,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Embrace her ever, ever multiply;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Be far from me that strange adultery",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To tempt thee, and procure her widowhood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My Muse⁠—for I had one⁠—because I’m cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Divorced herself, the cause being in me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I can take no new in bigamy,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not my will only, but power doth withhold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hence comes it, that these rhymes which never had",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mother, want matter, and they only have",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A little form, the which their father gave;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are profane, imperfect⁠—O, too bad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be counted children of poetry,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Except confirm’d and bishoped by thee.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}