To the Countess of Bedford: to have Written then, when you Writ, Seem'D to Me by John Donne

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