{
 "id": "john-donne/to-mr-rowland-woodward-4",
 "title": "To Mr. Rowland Woodward",
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If, as mine is, thy life a slumber be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seem, when thou read’st these lines, to dream of me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Never did Morpheus nor his brother wear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shapes so like those shapes, whom they would appear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As this my letter is like me, for it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath my name, words, hand, feet, heart, mind and wit.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It is my deed of gift of me to thee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is my will, myself the legacy.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So thy retirings I love, yea envy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bred in thee by a wise melancholy,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I rejoice, that unto where thou art,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though I stay here, I can thus send my heart,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As kindly as any enamour’d patient",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His picture to his absent love hath sent.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All news I think sooner reach thee than me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Havens are heavens, and ships wing’d angels be,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The which both gospel and stern threatenings bring.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Guiana’s harvest is nipp’d in the spring,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I fear; and with us, methinks, Fate deals so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As with the Jews’ guide God did; He did show",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Him the rich land, but barr’d his entry in;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our slowness is our punishment and sin.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance, these Spanish businesses being done,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, as the earth between the moon and sun,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Eclipse the light which Guiana would give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our discontinued hopes we shall retrieve.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But if⁠—as all th’ All must⁠—hopes smoke away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not almighty virtue an India?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If men be worlds, there is in everyone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something to answer in some proportion",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All the world’s riches; and in good men this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue, our form’s form and our soul’s soul, is.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}