{
 "id": "john-donne/to-the-countess-of-bedford-3",
 "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-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": 90,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To have written then, when you writ, seem’d to me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Worst of spiritual vices, simony;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And not to have written then seems little less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than worst of civil vices, thanklessness.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In this, my debt I seem’d loth to confess;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that, I seem’d to shun beholdingness.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But ’tis not so; nothings, as I am, may",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pay all they have, and yet have all to pay.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Such borrow in their payments, and owe more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By having leave to write so, than before.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, since rich mines in barren grounds are shown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May I not yield (not gold but) coal or stone?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Temples were not demolish’d, though profane;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here Peter Jove’s; there Paul hath Dian’s fane.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So whether my hymns you admit or choose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In me you’ve hallowed a pagan muse,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And denizen’d a stranger, who, mistaught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By blamers of the times they marr’d, hath sought",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtues in corners, which now bravely do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shine in the world’s best part, or all it⁠—you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I have been told, that virtue in courtiers’ hearts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suffers an ostracism, and departs.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Profit, ease, fitness, plenty, bid it go;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But whither, only knowing you, I know.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Your, or you virtue, two vast uses serves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It ransoms one sex, and one court preserves.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s nothing but your worth, which being true",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is known to any other, not to you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And you can never know it; to admit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No knowledge of your worth, is some of it.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But since to you your praises discords be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stoop others’ ills to meditate with me.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O! to confess we know not what we should,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is half excuse, we know not what we would.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lightness depresseth us, emptiness fills;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We sweat and faint, yet still go down the hills",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As new philosophy arrests the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bids the passive earth about it run,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So we have dull’d our mind; it hath no ends;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only the body’s busy, and pretends.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As dead low earth eclipses and controls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quick high moon, so doth the body souls.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In none but us are such mix’d engines found,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As hands of double office; for the ground",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We till with them, and them to heaven we raise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Doth but one half, that’s none; He which said, “Plough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And look not back,” to look up doth allow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Good seed degenerates, and oft obeys",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soil’s disease, and into cockle strays.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let the mind’s thoughts be but transplanted so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the body, and bastardly they grow.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What hate could hurt our bodies like our love?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We, but no foreign tyrants, could remove",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "These not engraved, but inborn dignities,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Caskets of souls, temples and palaces;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For bodies shall from death redeemed be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Souls but preserved, born naturally free.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As men to our prisons now, souls to us are sent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which learn vice there, and come in innocent.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "First seeds of every creature are in us;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whate’er the world hath bad, or precious,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Man’s body can produce; hence hath it been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That stones, worms, frogs, and snakes in man are seen.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But whoe’er saw, though nature can work so,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That pearl, or gold, or corn in man did grow?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ve added to the world Virginia, and sent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two new stars lately to the firmament.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why grudge we us (not heaven) the dignity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To increase with ours those fair souls’ company?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But I must end this letter; though it do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stand on two truths, neither is true to you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue has some perverseness, for she will",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Neither believe her good, nor others’ ill.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Even in you, virtue’s best paradise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virtue hath some, but wise degrees of vice.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Too many virtues, or too much of one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Begets in you unjust suspicion;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ignorance of vice makes virtue less,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quenching compassion of our wretchedness.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But these are riddles; some aspersion",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of vice becomes well some complexion.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Statesmen purge vice with vice, and may corrode",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bad with bad, a spider with a toad.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For so, ill thralls not them, but they tame ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And make her do much good against her will.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But in your commonwealth or world in you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vice hath no office or good work to do.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Take then no vicious purge, but be content",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With cordial virtue, your known nourishment.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}