{
 "id": "john-donne/to-sir-henry-wotton-at-his-going-ambassador-to-venice",
 "title": "To Sir Henry Wotton at His Going Ambassador to Venice",
 "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-1635",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Letters to Several Personages",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1635,
  "venue": "Poems, by J. D. with Elegies on the Authors Death (1635)",
  "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-1475-1640_poems-_donne-john-poems-by-j_1635"
  ]
 },
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "After those reverend papers, whose soul is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our good and great king’s loved hand and fear’d name;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By which to you he derives much of his,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, how he may, makes you almost the same,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A taper of his torch, a copy writ",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From his original, and a fair beam",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the same warm and dazzling sun, though it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must in another sphere his virtue stream;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "After those learned papers which your hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath stored with notes of use and pleasures too,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From which rich treasury you may command",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fit matter whether you will write or do;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "After those loving papers where friends send,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With glad grief to your seaward steps, farewell,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which thicken on you now, as prayers ascend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To heaven in troops, at a good man’s passing-bell;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Admit this honest paper, and allow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It such an audience as yourself would ask;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What you must say at Venice, this means now,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hath for nature, what you have for task.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To swear much love, not to be changed before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honour, alone will to your fortune fit;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor shall I then honour your fortune, more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than I have done your honour, wanting it.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But ’tis an easier load, though both oppress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To want, than govern greatness, for we are",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In that, our own and only business,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this, we must for others’ vices care.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis therefore well your spirits now are placed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In their last furnace, in activity;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which fits them⁠—schools and courts and wars o’erpast⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To touch and test in any best degree.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For me⁠—if there be such a thing as I⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fortune⁠—if there be such a thing as she⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Spies that I bear so well her tyranny,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That she thinks nothing else so fit for me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, though she part us, to hear my oft prayers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For your increase, God is as near me here;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And to send you what I shall beg, His stairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In length and ease are alike everywhere.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}