{
 "id": "john-donne/to-mr-rowland-woodward",
 "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 2,
    "field": "indent",
    "was": 0,
    "now": 1,
    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 2.8 character advances (~1.4 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/poemsofjohndonne01donn_1",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Like one who in her third widowhood doth profess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Herself a nun, tied to retiredness,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So affects my Muse, now, a chaste fallowness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Since she to few, yet to too many hath shown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How love-song weeds and satiric thorns are grown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where seeds of better arts were early sown;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though to use and love poetry, to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betroth’d to no one art, be no adultery;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Omissions of good, ill, as ill deeds be.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For though to us it seem but light and thin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet in those faithful scales, where God throws in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men’s works, vanity weighs as much as sin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If our souls have stain’d their first white, yet we",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May clothe them with faith, and dear honesty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which God imputes as native purity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is no virtue but religion.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wise, valiant, sober, just, are names which none",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Want, which want not vice-covering discretion.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Seek we then ourselves in ourselves; for as",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men force the sun with much more force to pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By gathering his beams with a crystal glass,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So we⁠—if we into ourselves will turn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blowing our spark of virtue⁠—may out-burn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The straw which doth about our hearts sojourn.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You know physicians, when they would infuse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into any oil the souls of simples, use",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Places, where they may lie still warm, to choose.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So works retiredness in us. To roam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Giddily and be everywhere, but at home,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such freedom doth a banishment become.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We are but farmers of ourselves, yet may,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we can stock ourselves, and thrive, uplay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Much, much dear treasure for the great rent day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Manure thyself then, to thyself be improved;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with vain outward things be no more moved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But to know that I love thee and would be loved.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}