{
 "id": "john-donne/to-the-countess-of-bedford-2",
 "title": "To the Countess of Bedford",
 "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": 73,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Madam⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You have refined me, and to worthiest things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue, art, beauty, fortune. Now I see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rareness or use, not nature, value brings;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And such, as they are circumstanced, they be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two ills can ne’er perplex us, sin to excuse;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But of two good things we may leave and choose.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Therefore at court⁠—which is not virtue’s clime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where a transcendent height (as lowness me)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes her not be, or not show⁠—all my rhyme",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your virtues challenge, which there rarest be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For, as dark texts need notes, there some must be",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To usher Virtue, and say, “This is she.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So in the country’s beauty. To this place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are the season, Madam, you the day;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis but a grave of spices, till your face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exhale them, and a thick close bud display;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Widow’d and reclused else, her sweets she enshrines",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As China, when the sun at Brazil dines.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Out from your chariot morning breaks at night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And falsifies both computations; so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since a new world doth rise here from your light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We, your new creatures, by new reckonings go.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This shows that you from nature lothly stray,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That suffer not an artificial day.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In this you’ve made the court th’ antipodes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And will’d your delegate, the vulgar sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To do profane autumnal offices,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whilst here to you we sacrificers run;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And whether priests or organs, you we obey;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We sound your influence, and your dictates say.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet to that deity which dwells in you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your virtuous soul, I now not sacrifice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These are petitions and not hymns; they sue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that I may survey the edifice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all religions as much care hath been",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of temples’ frames and beauty, as rites within",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As all which go to Rome do not thereby",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Esteem religions, and hold fast the best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But serve discourse and curiosity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With that which doth religion but invest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shun th’ entangling labyrinths of schools,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And make it wit, to think the wiser fools;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So in this pilgrimage I would behold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You as you’re Virtue’s temple, not as she;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What walls of tender crystal her enfold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What eyes, hands, bosom, her pure altars be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And after this survey, oppose to all",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Babblers of chapels, you, th’ Escurial.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet not as consecrate, but merely as fair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On these I cast a lay and country eye.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of past and future stories, which are rare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I find you all record and prophecy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Purge but the book of Fate, that it admit",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No sad nor guilty legends⁠—you are it.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If good and lovely were not one, of both",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were the transcript and original,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The elements, the parent, and the growth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every piece of you is both their all;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So entire are all your deeds, and you, that you",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Must do the same things still; you cannot two.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But these⁠—as nice thin school divinity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Serves heresy to further or repress⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taste of poetic rage, or flattery;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And need not, where all hearts one truth profess.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft from new proofs, and new phrase, new doubts grow,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As strange attire aliens the men we know.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Leaving then busy praise and all appeal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To higher courts, sense’s decree is true.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mine, the magazine, the commonweal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The story of beauty, in Twickenham is, and you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who hath seen one, would both; as, who had been",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Paradise, would seek the cherubin.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}