{
 "id": "john-donne/to-the-countess-of-huntingdon",
 "title": "To the Countess of Huntingdon",
 "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": 71,
  "n_stanzas": 18,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Madam⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Man to God’s image, Eve to man’s was made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor find we that God breathed a soul in her;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Canons will not Church functions you invade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor laws to civil office you prefer.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who vagrant transitory comets sees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wonders because they’re rare; but a new star,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose motion with the firmament agrees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is miracle; for there, no new things are.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In woman so perchance mild innocence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A seldom comet is; but active good",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A miracle, which reason ’scapes, and sense;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For art and nature this in them withstood.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As such a star the Magi led to view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The manger-cradled infant, God below,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By virtue’s beams⁠—by fame derived from you⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May apt souls⁠—and the worst may⁠—virtue know",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If the world’s age and death be argued well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the sun’s fall, which now towards earth doth bend,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then we might fear that virtue, since she fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So low as woman, should be near her end.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But she’s not stoop’d, but raised; exiled by men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She fled to heaven, that’s heavenly things, that’s you;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She was in all men thinly scatter’d then,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now a mass contracted in a few",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She gilded us, but you are gold; and she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Informed us, but transubstantiates you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Soft dispositions, which ductile be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Elixirlike, she makes not clean, but new.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though you a wife’s and mother’s name retain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis not as woman, for all are not so;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But virtue, having made you virtue, is fain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To adhere in these names, her and you to show",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Else, being alike pure, we should neither see;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As, water being into air rarified,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Neither appear, till in one cloud they be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, for our sakes, you do low names abide.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Taught by great constellations⁠—which being framed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the most stars take low names, Crab and Bull,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When single planets by the gods are named⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You covet not great names, of great things full.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So you, as woman, one doth comprehend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the veil of kindred others see;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To some you are reveal’d, as in a friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as a virtuous prince far off to me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To whom, because from you all virtues flow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ’tis not none, to dare contemplate you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I, which do so, as your true subject owe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some tribute for that; so these lines are due.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If you can think these flatteries, they are,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For then your judgment is below my praise.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If they were so, oft, flatteries work as far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As counsels, and as far th’ endeavour raise.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So my ill, reaching you, might there grow good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I remain a poison’d fountain still;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And not your beauty, virtue, knowledge, blood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are more above all flattery, than my will.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And if I flatter any, ’tis not you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But my own judgment, who did long ago",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pronounce, that all these praises should be true,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And virtue should your beauty and birth outgrow.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now that my prophecies are all fulfill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rather than God should not be honour’d too,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all these gifts confessed, which He instill’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yourself were bound to say that which I do.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So I but your Recorder am in this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or mouth, and Speaker of the universe,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A ministerial notary, for ’tis",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not I, but you and fame, that make this verse.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I was your prophet in your younger days,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And now your chaplain, God in you to praise.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}