No More Learning

_Be-prank'd_, be-decked.


522. TO HIS KINSWOMAN, MISTRESS SUSANNA HERRICK.

When I consider, dearest, thou dost stay
But here a-while, to languish and decay,
Like to these garden-glories, which here be
The flowery-sweet resemblances of thee;
With grief of heart, methinks, I thus do cry:
Would thou hadst ne'er been born, or might'st not die.


523. UPON MISTRESS SUSANNA SOUTHWELL, HER CHEEKS.

Rare are thy cheeks, Susanna, which do show
Ripe cherries smiling, while that others blow.


524. UPON HER EYES.

Clear are her eyes,
Like purest skies,
Discovering from thence
A baby there
That turns each sphere,
Like an Intelligence.

_A baby_, see Note to 38, "To his mistress objecting to him neither
toying nor talking".


525. UPON HER FEET.

Her pretty feet
Like snails did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-Peep,
Did soon draw in again.


526. TO HIS HONOURED FRIEND, SIR JOHN MINCE.

For civil, clean, and circumcised wit,
And for the comely carriage of it,
Thou art the man, the only man best known,
Mark'd for the true wit of a million:
From whom we'll reckon. Wit came in but since
The calculation of thy birth, brave Mince.


527. UPON HIS GREY HAIRS.

Fly me not, though I be grey:
Lady, this I know you'll say;
Better look the roses red
When with white commingled.
Black your hairs are, mine are white;
This begets the more delight,
When things meet most opposite:
As in pictures we descry
Venus standing Vulcan by.


528. ACCUSATION.

If accusation only can draw blood,
None shall be guiltless, be he ne'er so good.


529. PRIDE ALLOWABLE IN POETS.

As thou deserv'st, be proud; then gladly let
The Muse give thee the Delphic coronet.


530. A VOW TO MINERVA.

Goddess, I begin an art;
Come thou in, with thy best part
For to make the texture lie
Each way smooth and civilly;
And a broad-fac'd owl shall be
Offer'd up with vows to thee.

_Civilly_, orderly.
_Owl_, the bird sacred to Athene or Minerva.


534. TO ELECTRA.

'Tis evening, my sweet,
And dark, let us meet;
Long time w'ave here been a-toying,
And never, as yet,
That season could get
Wherein t'ave had an enjoying.

For pity or shame,
Then let not love's flame
Be ever and ever a-spending;
Since now to the port
The path is but short,
And yet our way has no ending.

Time flies away fast,
Our hours do waste,
The while we never remember
How soon our life, here,
Grows old with the year
That dies with the next December.


535. DISCORD NOT DISADVANTAGEOUS.

Fortune no higher project can devise
Than to sow discord 'mongst the enemies.


536. ILL GOVERNMENT.

Preposterous is that government, and rude,
When kings obey the wilder multitude.

_Preposterous_, lit. hind-part before.


537. TO MARIGOLDS.

Give way, and be ye ravish'd by the sun,
And hang the head whenas the act is done,
Spread as he spreads, wax less as he does wane;
And as he shuts, close up to maids again.


538. TO DIANEME.

Give me one kiss
And no more:
If so be this
Makes you poor,
To enrich you,
I'll restore
For that one two
Thousand score.


539. TO JULIA, THE FLAMINICA DIALIS OR QUEEN-PRIEST.

Thou know'st, my Julia, that it is thy turn
This morning's incense to prepare and burn.
The chaplet and Inarculum[L] here be,
With the white vestures, all attending thee.
This day the queen-priest thou art made, t' appease
Love for our very many trespasses.
One chief transgression is, among the rest,
Because with flowers her temple was not dressed;
The next, because her altars did not shine
With daily fires; the last, neglect of wine;
For which her wrath is gone forth to consume
Us all, unless preserved by thy perfume.
Take then thy censer, put in fire, and thus,
O pious priestess! make a peace for us.
For our neglect Love did our death decree;
That we escape. _Redemption comes by thee_.

[L] A twig of a pomegranate, which the queen-priest did use to wear on
her head at sacrificing. (Note in the original edition. )


540. ANACREONTIC.

Born I was to be old,
And for to die here:
After that, in the mould
Long for to lie here.
But before that day comes
Still I be bousing,
For I know in the tombs
There's no carousing.


541. MEAT WITHOUT MIRTH.

Eaten I have; and though I had good cheer,
I did not sup, because no friends were there.
Where mirth and friends are absent when we dine
Or sup, there wants the incense and the wine.


542. LARGE BOUNDS DO BUT BURY US.

All things o'er-ruled are here by chance:
The greatest man's inheritance,
Where'er the lucky lot doth fall,
Serves but for place of burial.


543. UPON URSLEY.

Ursley, she thinks those velvet patches grace
The candid temples of her comely face;
But he will say, whoe'er those circlets seeth,
They be but signs of Ursley's hollow teeth.


544. AN ODE TO SIR CLIPSEBY CREW.

Here we securely live and eat
The cream of meat,
And keep eternal fires,
By which we sit, and do divine
As wine
And rage inspires.

If full we charm, then call upon
Anacreon
To grace the frantic thyrse;
And having drunk, we raise a shout
Throughout
To praise his verse.

Then cause we Horace to be read,
Which sung, or said,
A goblet to the brim
Of lyric wine, both swell'd and crown'd,
Around
We quaff to him.

Thus, thus we live, and spend the hours
In wine and flowers,
And make the frolic year,
The month, the week, the instant day
To stay
The longer here.

Come then, brave knight, and see the cell
Wherein I dwell,
And my enchantments too,
Which love and noble freedom is;
And this
Shall fetter you.

Take horse, and come, or be so kind
To send your mind,
Though but in numbers few,
And I shall think I have the heart,
Or part
Of Clipseby Crew.

_Securely_, free from care.
_Thyrse_, a Bacchic staff.
_Instant_, oncoming.
_Numbers_, verses.


545. TO HIS WORTHY KINSMAN, MR. STEPHEN SOAME.

Nor is my number full till I inscribe
Thee, sprightly Soame, one of my righteous tribe;
A tribe of one lip, leaven, and of one
Civil behaviour, and religion;
A stock of saints, where ev'ry one doth wear
A stole of white, and canonised here;
Among which holies be thou ever known,
Brave kinsman, mark'd out with the whiter stone
Which seals thy glory, since I do prefer
Thee here in my eternal calender.


546. TO HIS TOMB-MAKER.

Go I must; when I am gone,
Write but this upon my stone:
Chaste I lived, without a wife,
That's the story of my life.
Strewings need none, every flower
Is in this word, bachelour.


547. GREAT SPIRITS SUPERVIVE.

Our mortal parts may wrapp'd in sear-cloths lie:
_Great spirits never with their bodies die_.


548. NONE FREE FROM FAULT.

Out of the world he must, who once comes in.
_No man exempted is from death, or sin. _


549. UPON HIMSELF BEING BURIED.

Let me sleep this night away,
Till the dawning of the day;
Then at th' opening of mine eyes
I, and all the world, shall rise.


550. PITY TO THE PROSTRATE.

'Tis worse than barbarous cruelty to show
No part of pity on a conquered foe.


552. HIS CONTENT IN THE COUNTRY.

Here, here I live with what my board
Can with the smallest cost afford.
Though ne'er so mean the viands be,
They well content my Prew and me.
Or pea, or bean, or wort, or beet,
Whatever comes, content makes sweet.
Here we rejoice, because no rent
We pay for our poor tenement,
Wherein we rest, and never fear
The landlord or the usurer.
The quarter-day does ne'er affright
Our peaceful slumbers in the night.
We eat our own and batten more,
Because we feed on no man's score;
But pity those whose flanks grow great,
Swell'd with the lard of others' meat.
We bless our fortunes when we see
Our own beloved privacy;
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none.

_Prew_, _i. e. _, his servant, Prudence Baldwin.


553. THE CREDIT OF THE CONQUEROR.

He who commends the vanquished, speaks the power
And glorifies the worthy conqueror.


554. ON HIMSELF.

Some parts may perish, die thou canst not all:
The most of thee shall 'scape the funeral.


556. THE FAIRIES.

If ye will with Mab find grace,
Set each platter in his place;
Rake the fire up, and get
Water in, ere sun be set.
Wash your pails, and cleanse your dairies;
Sluts are loathsome to the fairies;
Sweep your house, who doth not so,
Mab will pinch her by the toe.


557. TO HIS HONOURED FRIEND, M. JOHN WEARE, COUNCILLOR.

Did I or love, or could I others draw
To the indulgence of the rugged law,
The first foundation of that zeal should be
By reading all her paragraphs in thee,
Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,
As if you two were one hermaphrodite.
Nor courts[t] thou her because she's well attended
With wealth, but for those ends she was intended:
Which were,--and still her offices are known,--
_Law is to give to ev'ry one his own_;
To shore the feeble up against the strong,
To shield the stranger and the poor from wrong.
This was the founder's grave and good intent:
To keep the outcast in his tenement,
To free the orphan from that wolf-like man,
Who is his butcher more than guardian;
To dry the widow's tears, and stop her swoons,
By pouring balm and oil into her wounds.
This was the old way; and 'tis yet thy course
To keep those pious principles in force.
Modest I will be; but one word I'll say,
Like to a sound that's vanishing away,
Sooner the inside of thy hand shall grow
Hisped and hairy, ere thy palm shall know
A postern-bribe took, or a forked fee,
To fetter Justice, when she might be free.
_Eggs I'll not shave_; but yet, brave man, if I
Was destin'd forth to golden sovereignty,
A prince I'd be, that I might thee prefer
To be my counsel both and chancellor.

_Hisped_ (_hispidus_), rough with hairs.
_Postern-bribe_, a back-door bribe.
_Forked fee_, a fee from both sides in a case; cp. Ben Jonson's
_Volpone_: "Give forked counsel, take provoking gold on either hand".
_Eggs I'll not shave_, a proverb.


560. THE WATCH.

Man is a watch, wound up at first, but never
Wound up again: once down, he's down for ever.
The watch once down, all motions then do cease;
And man's pulse stop'd, all passions sleep in peace.


561. LINES HAVE THEIR LININGS, AND BOOKS THEIR BUCKRAM.

As in our clothes, so likewise he who looks,
Shall find much farcing buckram in our books.

_Farcing_, stuffing.


562. ART ABOVE NATURE: TO JULIA.

When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head,
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which like a pinnacle doth show
The top, and the top-gallant too.
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an oval, square, or round,
And knit in knots far more than I
Can tell by tongue, or true-love tie;
Next, when those lawny films I see
Play with a wild civility,
And all those airy silks to flow,
Alluring me, and tempting so:
I must confess mine eye and heart
Dotes less on Nature than on Art.

_Civility_, order.


564. UPON HIS KINSWOMAN, MISTRESS BRIDGET HERRICK.

Sweet Bridget blush'd, and therewithal
Fresh blossoms from her cheeks did fall.
I thought at first 'twas but a dream,
Till after I had handled them
And smelt them, then they smelt to me
As blossoms of the almond tree.


565. UPON LOVE.

I played with Love, as with the fire
The wanton Satyr did;
Nor did I know, or could descry
What under there was hid.

That Satyr he but burnt his lips;
But mine's the greater smart,
For kissing Love's dissembling chips
The fire scorch'd my heart.

_The wanton Satyr_, see Note.


566. UPON A COMELY AND CURIOUS MAID.

If men can say that beauty dies,
Marbles will swear that here it lies.
If, reader, then thou canst forbear
In public loss to shed a tear,
The dew of grief upon this stone
Will tell thee pity thou hast none.


567. UPON THE LOSS OF HIS FINGER.

One of the five straight branches of my hand
Is lop'd already, and the rest but stand
Expecting when to fall, which soon will be;
First dies the leaf, the bough next, next the tree.


568. UPON IRENE.

Angry if Irene be
But a minute's life with me:
Such a fire I espy
Walking in and out her eye,
As at once I freeze and fry.


569. UPON ELECTRA'S TEARS.

Upon her cheeks she wept, and from those showers
Sprang up a sweet nativity of flowers.




NOTES.




NOTES.




2. _Whither, mad maiden_, etc. From Martial, I. iv. 11, 12:--

Aetherias, lascive, cupis volitare per auras:
I, fuge; sed poteras tutior esse domi.

_But for the Court. _ Cp. Martial, I. iv. 3, 4.

4. _While Brutus standeth by. _ "Brutus and Cato are commonplaces of
examples of severe virtue": Grosart. But Herrick is translating. This is
from Martial, XI. xvi.
9, 10:--

Erubuit posuitque meum Lucretia librum,
Sed coram Bruto; Brute, recede, leget.

8. _When he would have his verses read. _ The thought throughout this
poem is taken from Martial, X. xix. , beginning:--

Nec doctum satis et parum severum,
Sed non rusticulum nimis libellum
Facundo mea Plinio, Thalia,
I perfer:

where the address to Thalia perhaps explains Herrick's "do not _thou_
rehearse". The important lines are:--

Sed ne tempore non tuo disertam
Pulses ebria januam, videto.
. . . . . . . . .
Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas.
Hæc hora est tua, cum furit Lyæus,
Cum regnat rosa, cum madent capilli:
Tunc me vel rigidi legant Catones.

_When laurel spirts i' th' fire. _ Burning bay leaves was a Christmas
observance. Herrick sings:--

"Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds":

where compare Tibull. II. v. 81-84. It was also used by maids as a love
omen.

_Thyrse . . . sacred Orgies. _ Herrick's glosses show that the passage he
had in mind was Catullus, lxiv. 256-269:--

Harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis,
Orgia, quæ frustra cupiunt audire profani.

10. _No man at one time can be wise and love. _ Amare et sapere vix deo
conceditur. (Publius Syrus. ) The quotation is found in both Burton and
Montaigne.

12. _Who fears to ask_, etc. From Seneca, _Hippol. _ 594-95. Qui timide
rogat . . . docet negare.

15. _Goddess Isis . . . with her scent. _ Cp. Plutarch, _De Iside et
Osiride_, 15.

17. _He acts the crime. _ Seneca: Nil interest faveas sceleri an illud
facias.

18. _Two things odious. _ From Ecclus. xxv. 2.

31. _A Sister . . . about I'll lead. _ "Have we not power to lead about a
sister, a wife? " 1 Cor. ix. 5.

35. _Mercy and Truth live with thee. _ 2 Sam. xv. 20.

38. _To please those babies in your eyes. _ The phrase "babies [_i. e. _,
dolls] in the eyes" is probably only a translation of its metaphor,
involved in the use of the Latin _pupilla_ (a little girl), or "pupil,"
for the central spot of the eye. The metaphor doubtless arose from the
small reflections of the inlooker, which appear in the eyes of the
person gazed at; but we meet with it both intensified, as in the phrase
"to look babies in the eyes" (= to peer amorously), and with its origin
disregarded, as in Herrick, where the "babies" are the pupils, and have
an existence independent of any inlooker.

_Small griefs find tongue. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 608:

Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.

_Full casks. _ So G. Herbert, _Jacula Prudentum_ (1640): Empty vessels
sound most.

48. _Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave. _ Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176:
Velut unda supervenit unda. Κύματα κακῶν and κακῶν τρικυμία are common
phrases in Greek tragedy.

49. _Cherry-pit. _ Printed in the 1654 edition of _Witts Recreations_,
where it appears as:--

"_Nicholas_ and _Nell_ did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit;
They both did throw, and, having thrown,
He got the pit and she the stone".

51. _Ennobled numbers. _ This poem is often quoted to prove that
Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the
reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would
rather prove the opposite.

52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice. _ Jerem. xxii. 29: O
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

56. _Love give me more such nights as these. _ A reminiscence of
Marlowe's version of Ovid, _Amor_. I. v. 26: "Jove send me more such
afternoons as this".

72. _Upon his Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, wife to his
brother Thomas (see _infra_, 106).

74. _Love makes me write what shame forbids to speak. _ Ovid, _Phædra to
Hippol. _: Dicere quæ puduit scribere jussit amor.

_Give me a kiss. _ Herrick is here imitating the well-known lines of
Catullus to Lesbia (_Carm. _ v. ):--

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, etc.

77. _To the King, upon his coming with his army into the west. _ Essex
had marched into the west in June, 1644, relieved Lyme, and captured
royal fortresses in Dorset and Devon. Charles followed him into "the
drooping west," and, in September, the Parliamentary infantry were
forced to surrender, while Essex himself escaped by sea. Herrick's
"white omens" were thus fulfilled.

79. _To the King and Queen upon their unhappy distances. _ Henrietta
Maria escaped abroad with the crown jewels in 1642, returned the next
year and rejoined Charles in the west in 1644, whence she escaped again
to France. This poem has been supposed to refer to domestic dissensions;
but the "ball of strife" is surely the Civil War in general, and the
reference to the parting of 1644.

81. _The Cheat of Cupid. _ Herrick is here translating "Anacreon," 31
[3]:--

Μεσονυκτίοις ποθ' ὥραις
στρέφεθ' ἡνίκ' Ἄρκτος ἤδη
κατὰ χεῖρα τὴν Βοώτου,
μερόπων δὲ φῦλα πάντα
κέαται κόπῳ δαμέντα, 5
τότ' Ἔρως ἐπισταθείς μευ
θυρέων ἔκοπτ' ὀχῆας.
τίς, ἔφην, θύρας ἀράσσει;
κατά μευ σχίζεις ὀνείρους.
ὁ δ' Ἔρως, ἄνοιγε, φησίν· 10
βρέφος εἰμί, μὴ φόβησαι·
βρέχομαι δὲ κἀσέληνον
κατὰ νύκτα πεπλάνημαι.
ἐλέησα ταῦτ' ἀκούσας,
ἀνὰ δ' εὐθὺ λύχνον ἅψας 15
ἀνέῳξα, καὶ βρέφος μέν
ἐσορῶ φἐροντα τόξον
πτέρυγάς τε καὶ φαρέτρην.
παρὰ δ' ἱστίην καθῖσα,
παλάμαις τε χεῖρας αὐτοῦ 20
ἀνέθαλπον, ἐκ δὲ χαίτης
ἀπέθλιβον ὑγρὸν ὕδωρ.
ὁ δ', ἐπεὶ κρύος μεθῆκεν,
φέρε, φησί, πειράσωμεν
τόδε τόξον, εἴ τι μοι νῦν 25
βλάβεται βραχεῖσα νευρή.
τανύει δὲ καί με τύπτει
μέσον ἡπαρ, ὥσπερ οἶστρος·
ἀνὰ δ' ἅλλεται καχάζων,
ξένε δ', εἶπε, συγχάρηθι· 30
κέρας ἀβλαβὲς μὲν ἡμῖν,
σὺ δὲ καρδίην πονήσεις.

Some of his phrases, however, prove that he was occasionally more
indebted to the Latin version of Stephanus than to the original.

82. _That for seven lusters I did never come. _ The fall of Herrick's
father from a window, fifteen months after the poet's birth, was imputed
at the time to suicide; and it has been reasonably conjectured that some
mystery may have attached to the place of his burial. If "seven
lusters" can be taken literally for thirty-five years, this poem was
written in 1627.

83. _Delight in Disorder. _ Cp. Ben Jonson's "Still to be neat, still to
be drest," in its turn imitated from one of the _Basia_ of Johannes
Bonefonius.

85. _Upon Love. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654. The only variant
is "To tell me" for "To signifie" in the third line.

86. _To Dean Bourn. _ "We found many persons in the village who could
repeat some of his lines, and none who were not acquainted with his
'Farewell to Dean Bourn,' which they said he uttered as he crossed the
brook upon being ejected by Cromwell from the vicarage, to which he had
been presented by Charles the First. But they added, with an air of
innocent triumph, 'he did see it again,' as was the fact after the
restoration. " Barron Field in _Quarterly Review_, August, 1810. Herrick
was ejected in 1648.

_A rocky generation! a people currish. _ Cp. Burton, II. iii. 2: a rude
. . . uncivil, wild, currish generation.

91. _That man loves not who is not zealous too. _ Augustine, _Adv.
Adimant. _ 13: Qui non zelat, non amat.

92. _The Bag of the Bee. _ Printed in _Witts Recreations_, 1654, and in
Henry Bold's _Wit a-sporting in a Pleasant Grove of new Fancies_, 1657.
Set to music by Henry Lawes.

93. _Luxurious love by wealth is nourished. _ Ovid, _Remed. Amor. _ 746:
Divitiis alitur luxuriosus amor.

95. _Homer himself. _ Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Horace,
_De Art. Poet. _ 359.

100. _To bread and water none is poor. _ Seneca, _Excerpt. _ ii.