No More Learning

The quarterly stipend was paid through various booksellers, but
irregularly, so that the poor poet was frequently reduced to great
straits, though £40 a-year (£200 of our money) was no bad allowance.
After two years he migrated from St. John's to Trinity Hall, to study
law and curtail his expenses. He took his Bachelor's degree from there
in January, 1617, and his Master's in 1620. The fourteen letters show
that he had prepared himself for University life by cultivating a very
florid prose style which frequently runs into decasyllabics, perhaps a
result of a study of the dramatists. Sir William Herrick is sometimes
addressed in them as his most "careful" uncle, but at the time of his
migration the poet speaks of his "ebbing estate," and as late as 1629 he
was still £10 16s. 9d. in debt to the College Steward. We can thus
hardly imagine that he was possessed of any considerable private income
when he returned to London, to live practically on his wits, and a study
of his poems suggests that, the influence of the careful uncle removed,
whatever capital he possessed was soon likely to vanish. [B] His verses
to the Earl of Pembroke, to Endymion Porter and to others, show that he
was glad of "pay" as well as "praise," but the system of patronage
brought no discredit with it, and though the absence of any poetical
mention of his uncle suggests that the rich goldsmith was not
well-pleased with his nephew, with the rest of his well-to-do relations
Herrick seems to have remained on excellent terms.

[B] Yet in his _Farewell to Poetry_ he distinctly says:--

"I've more to bear my charge than way to go";

the line, however, is a translation from his favourite Seneca, Ep. 77.

Besides patrons, such as Pembroke, Westmoreland, Newark, Buckingham,
Herrick had less distinguished friends at Court, Edward Norgate, Jack
Crofts and others. He composed the words for two New Year anthems which
were set to music by Henry Lawes, and he was probably personally known
both to the King and Queen. Outside the Court he reckoned himself one of
Ben Jonson's disciples, "Sons of Ben" as they were called, had friends
at the Inns of Court, knew the organist of Westminster Abbey and his
pretty daughters, and had every temptation to live an amusing and
expensive life. His poems were handed about in manuscript after the
fashion of the time, and wherever music and poetry were loved he was
sure to be a welcome guest.

Mr. Hazlitt's conjecture that Herrick at this time may have held some
small post in the Chapel at Whitehall is not unreasonable, but at what
date he took Holy Orders is not known. In 1627 he obtained the post of
chaplain to the unlucky expedition to the Isle of Rhé, and two years
later (September 30, 1629) he was presented by the King to the Vicarage
of Dean Prior, in Devonshire, which the promotion of its previous
incumbent, Dr. Potter, to the Bishopric of Carlisle, had left in the
royal gift. The annual value of the living was only £50 (£250 present
value), no great prize, but the poem entitled _Mr. Robert Hericke: his
farwell unto Poetrie_ (not printed in _Hesperides_, but extant in more
than one manuscript version) shows that the poet was not unaware of the
responsibilities of his profession. "But unto me," he says to his Muse:

"But unto me be only hoarse, since now
(Heaven and my soul bear record of my vow)
I my desires screw from thee and direct
Them and my thoughts to that sublime respect
And conscience unto priesthood. 'Tis not need
(The scarecrow unto mankind) that doth breed
Wiser conclusions in me, since I know
I've more to bear my charge than way to go;
Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch
Of craving more: so in conceit be rich;
But 'tis the God of nature who intends
And shapes my function for more glorious ends. "

Perhaps it was at this time too that Herrick wrote his _Farewell to
Sack_, and although he returned both to sack and to poetry we should be
wrong in imagining him as a "blind mouth," using his office merely as a
means of gain. He celebrated the births of Charles II and his brother in
verse, perhaps with an eye to future royal favours, but no more than
Chaucer's good parson does he seem to have "run to London unto Seynte
Poules" in search of the seventeenth century equivalent for a chauntry,
and many of his poems show him living the life of a contented country
clergyman, sharing the contents of bin and cruse with his poor
parishioners, and jotting down sermon-notes in verse.

The great majority of Herrick's poems cannot be dated, and it is idle to
enquire which were written before his ordination and which afterwards.
His conception of religion was medieval in its sensuousness, and he
probably repeated the stages of sin, repentance and renewed assurance
with some facility. He lived with an old servant, Prudence Baldwin, the
"Prew" of many of his poems; kept a spaniel named Tracy, and, so says
tradition, a tame pig. When his parishioners annoyed him he seems to
have comforted himself with epigrams on them; when they slumbered during
one of his sermons the manuscript was suddenly hurled at them with a
curse for their inattention.

In the same year that Herrick was appointed to his country vicarage his
mother died while living with her daughter, Mercy, the poet's dearest
sister (see 818), then for some time married to John Wingfield of
Brantham in Suffolk (see 590), by whom she had three sons and a
daughter, also called Mercy. His eldest brother, Thomas, had been placed
with a Mr. Massam, a merchant, but as early as 1610 had retired to live
a country life in Leicestershire (see 106). He appears to have married a
wife named Elizabeth, whose loss Herrick laments (see 72). Nicholas, the
next brother was more adventurous. He had become a merchant trading to
the Levant, and in this capacity had visited the Holy Land (see 1100).
To his wife Susanna, daughter of William Salter, Herrick addresses two
poems (522 and 977). There were three sons and four daughters in this
family, and Herrick wrote a poem to one of the daughters, Bridget (562),
and an elegy on another, Elizabeth (376). When Mrs. Herrick died the
bulk of her property was left to the Wingfields, but William Herrick
received a legacy of £100, with ten pounds apiece to his two children,
and a ring of twenty shillings to his wife. Nicholas and Robert were
only left twenty-shilling rings, and the administration of the will was
entrusted to William Herrick and the Wingfields. The will may have been
the result of a family arrangement, and we have no reason to believe
that the unequal division gave rise to any ill-feeling. Herrick's
address to "his dying brother, Master William Herrick" (186), shows
abundant affection, and there is every reason to believe that it was
addressed to the William who administered to Mrs. Herrick's will.

While little nephews and nieces were springing up around him, Herrick
remained unmarried, and frequently congratulates himself on his freedom
from the yoke matrimonial. He imagined how he would bid farewell to his
wife, if he had one (465), and wrote magnificent epithalamia for his
friends, but lived and died a bachelor. When first civil troubles and
then civil war cast a shadow over the land, it is not very easy to say
how he viewed the contending parties. He was devoted to Charles and
Henrietta Maria and the young Prince of Wales, and rejoiced at every
Royalist success. Many also of his poems breathe the spirit of
unquestioning loyalty, but in others he is less certain of kingly
wisdom. Something, however, must be allowed for his evident habit of
versifying any phrase or epigram which impressed him, and not all his
poems need be regarded as expressions of his personal opinions. But with
whatever doubts his loyalty was qualified, it was sufficiently obvious
to procure his ejection from his living in 1648; and, making the best of
his loss, he bade farewell to Dean Prior, shook the dust of "loathed
Devonshire" off his feet, and returned gaily to London, where he appears
to have discarded his clerical habit and to have been made abundantly
welcome by his friends.

Free from the cares of his incumbency, and free also from the restraints
it imposed, Herrick's thoughts turned to the publication of his poems.
As we have said, in his old Court-days these had found some circulation
in manuscript, and in 1635 one of his fairy poems was printed, probably
without his leave (see Appendix). In 1639 his poem (575) _The Apparition
of his Mistress calling him to Elysium_ was licensed at Stationers' Hall
under the title of _His Mistress' Shade_, and it was included the next
year in an edition of Shakespeare's Poems (see Notes). On April 29,
1640, "The severall poems written by Master Robert Herrick," were
entered as to be published by Andrew Crook, but no trace of such a
volume has been discovered, and it was only in 1648 that _Hesperides_ at
length appeared. Two years later upwards of eighty of the poems in it
were printed in the 1650 edition of _Witt's Recreations_, but a small
number of these show considerable variations from the _Hesperides_
versions, and it is probable that they were printed from the poet's
manuscript. Compilers of other miscellanies and song books laid Herrick
under contribution, but, with the one exception of his contribution to
the _Lacrymæ Musarum_ in 1649, no fresh production of his pen has been
preserved, and we know nothing further of his life save that he returned
to Dean Prior after the Restoration (August 24, 1662), and that
according to the parish register "Robert Herrick, Vicker, was buried
y^e 15th day October, 1674. "

ALFRED W. POLLARD




NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.


In this edition some trifling errors, which had crept into the text and
the numeration of the poems, have been corrected, and many fresh
illustrations of Herrick's reading added in the notes, which have
elsewhere been slightly compressed to make room for them. Almost all of
the new notes have been supplied from the manuscript collections of a
veteran student of Herrick who placed himself in correspondence with me
after the publication of my first edition. To my great regret I am not
allowed to make my acknowledgments to him by name.

A. W. P.




HESPERIDES:
OR,
THE WORKS
BOTH
HUMANE & DIVINE
OF
ROBERT HERRICK _Esq. _



OVID.

_Effugient avidos Carmina nostra Rogos. _



_LONDON. _

Printed for _John Williams_, and _Francis Eglesfield_,
and are to be sold by _Tho: Hunt_, Book-seller
in _Exon. _ 1648.




TO THE
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST HOPEFUL
PRINCE.
CHARLES,
PRINCE OF WALES.

Well may my book come forth like public day
When such a light as you are leads the way,
Who are my work's creator, and alone
The flame of it, and the expansion.
And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire
Light from the sun, that inexhausted fire,
So all my morn and evening stars from you
Have their existence, and their influence too.
Full is my book of glories; but all these
By you become immortal substances.




HESPERIDES.


1. THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK.

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers,
Of April, May, of June and July-flowers;
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal cakes;
I write of youth, of love, and have access
By these to sing of cleanly wantonness;
I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece
Of balm, of oil, of spice and ambergris;
I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write
How roses first came red and lilies white;
I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King;
I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.

_Hock-cart_, the last cart from the harvest-field.
_Wakes_, village festivals, properly on the dedication-day of a church.
_Ambergris_, 'grey amber,' much used in perfumery.


2. TO HIS MUSE.

Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home,
Where thou mayst sit and piping please
The poor and private cottages,
Since cotes and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou mayst express
The shepherd's fleecy happiness,
And with thy eclogues intermix
Some smooth and harmless bucolics.
There on a hillock thou mayst sing
Unto a handsome shepherdling,
Or to a girl, that keeps the neat,
With breath more sweet than violet.
There, there, perhaps, such lines as these
May take the simple villages;
But for the court, the country wit
Is despicable unto it.
Stay, then, at home, and do not go
Or fly abroad to seek for woe.
Contempts in courts and cities dwell,
No critic haunts the poor man's cell,
Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read
By no one tongue there censured.
That man's unwise will search for ill,
And may prevent it, sitting still.


3. TO HIS BOOK.

While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd,
Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child,
But when I saw thee wantonly to roam
From house to house, and never stay at home,
I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go,
Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no.
On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be:
If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee.


4. ANOTHER.

To read my book the virgin shy
May blush while Brutus standeth by,
But when he's gone, read through what's writ,
And never stain a cheek for it.

_Brutus_, see Martial, xi. 16, quoted in Note at the end of the volume.


7. TO HIS BOOK.

Come thou not near those men who are like bread
O'er-leaven'd, or like cheese o'er-renneted.


8. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ.

In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse
The holy incantation of a verse;
But when that men have both well drunk and fed,
Let my enchantments then be sung or read.
When laurel spirts i'th' fire, and when the hearth
Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth;
When up the thyrse[C] is rais'd, and when the sound
Of sacred orgies[D] flies, a round, a round.
When the rose reigns, and locks with ointments shine,
Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.

_Round_, a rustic dance.
_Cato_, see Martial, x. 17, quoted in Note.

[C] "A javelin twined with ivy" (Note in the original edition).

[D] "Songs to Bacchus" (Note in the original edition. )


9. UPON JULIA'S RECOVERY.

Droop, droop no more, or hang the head,
Ye roses almost withered;
Now strength and newer purple get,
Each here declining violet.
O primroses! let this day be
A resurrection unto ye;
And to all flowers ally'd in blood,
Or sworn to that sweet sisterhood:
For health on Julia's cheek hath shed
Claret and cream commingled;
And those her lips do now appear
As beams of coral, but more clear.

_Beams_, perhaps here = branches: but cp. 440.


10. TO SILVIA TO WED.

Let us, though late, at last, my Silvia, wed,
And loving lie in one devoted bed.
Thy watch may stand, my minutes fly post-haste;
No sound calls back the year that once is past.
Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
_True love, we know, precipitates delay. _
Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove;
_No man at one time can be wise and love. _


11. THE PARLIAMENT OF ROSES TO JULIA.

I dreamt the roses one time went
To meet and sit in parliament;
The place for these, and for the rest
Of flowers, was thy spotless breast,
Over the which a state was drawn
Of tiffanie or cobweb lawn.
Then in that parly all those powers
Voted the rose the queen of flowers;
But so as that herself should be
The maid of honour unto thee.

_State_, a canopy.
_Tiffanie_, gauze.
_Parly_, a parliament.


12. NO BASHFULNESS IN BEGGING.

To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside;
_Who fears to ask doth teach to be deny'd. _


13. THE FROZEN HEART.

I freeze, I freeze, and nothing dwells
In me but snow and icicles.
For pity's sake, give your advice,
To melt this snow and thaw this ice.
I'll drink down flames; but if so be
Nothing but love can supple me,
I'll rather keep this frost and snow
Than to be thaw'd or heated so.


14. TO PERILLA.

Ah, my Perilla! dost thou grieve to see
Me, day by day, to steal away from thee?
Age calls me hence, and my grey hairs bid come,
And haste away to mine eternal home;
'Twill not be long, Perilla, after this,
That I must give thee the supremest kiss.
Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bring
Part of the cream from that religious spring;
With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet;
That done, then wind me in that very sheet
Which wrapt thy smooth limbs when thou didst implore
The gods' protection but the night before.
Follow me weeping to my turf, and there
Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear:
Then, lastly, let some weekly-strewings be
Devoted to the memory of me:
Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep
Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep.

_Weekly strewings_, _i. e. _, of flowers on his grave.
_First cast in salt_, cp. 769.


15. A SONG TO THE MASKERS.

Come down and dance ye in the toil
Of pleasures to a heat;
But if to moisture, let the oil
Of roses be your sweat.

Not only to yourselves assume
These sweets, but let them fly
From this to that, and so perfume
E'en all the standers by;

As goddess Isis, when she went
Or glided through the street,
Made all that touched her, with her scent,
And whom she touched, turn sweet.


16. TO PERENNA.

When I thy parts run o'er, I can't espy
In any one the least indecency;
But every line and limb diffused thence
A fair and unfamiliar excellence:
So that the more I look the more I prove
There's still more cause why I the more should love.

_Indecency_, uncomeliness.


17. TREASON.

The seeds of treason choke up as they spring:
_He acts the crime that gives it cherishing_.


18. TWO THINGS ODIOUS.

Two of a thousand things are disallow'd:
A lying rich man, and a poor man proud.


19. TO HIS MISTRESSES.

Help me! help me! now I call
To my pretty witchcrafts all;
Old I am, and cannot do
That I was accustomed to.
Bring your magics, spells, and charms,
To enflesh my thighs and arms.
Is there no way to beget
In my limbs their former heat?
Æson had, as poets feign,
Baths that made him young again:
Find that medicine, if you can,
For your dry decrepit man
Who would fain his strength renew,
Were it but to pleasure you.

_Æson_, rejuvenated by Medea; see Ovid, Met. vii.


20. THE WOUNDED HEART.

Come bring your sampler, and with art
Draw in't a wounded heart
And dropping here and there:
Not that I think that any dart
Can make yours bleed a tear,
Or pierce it anywhere;
Yet do it to this end: that I
May by
This secret see,
Though you can make
That heart to bleed, yours ne'er will ache
For me.


21. NO LOATHSOMENESS IN LOVE.

What I fancy I approve,
_No dislike there is in love_.
Be my mistress short or tall,
And distorted therewithal:
Be she likewise one of those
That an acre hath of nose:
Be her forehead and her eyes
Full of incongruities:
Be her cheeks so shallow too
As to show her tongue wag through;
Be her lips ill hung or set,
And her grinders black as jet:
Has she thin hair, hath she none,
She's to me a paragon.


22. TO ANTHEA.

If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be
To live some few sad hours after thee,
Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn,
And with my laurel crown thy golden urn.
Then holding up there such religious things
As were, time past, thy holy filletings,
Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fall
Down dead for grief, and end my woes withal:
So three in one small plat of ground shall lie--
Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry.


23. THE WEEPING CHERRY.

I saw a cherry weep, and why?
Why wept it? but for shame
Because my Julia's lip was by,
And did out-red the same.
But, pretty fondling, let not fall
A tear at all for that:
Which rubies, corals, scarlets, all
For tincture wonder at.


24. SOFT MUSIC.

The mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soul when it doth rather sigh than sound.


25.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT KINGS AND SUBJECTS.

'Twixt kings and subjects there's this mighty odds:
Subjects are taught by men; kings by the gods.


26. HIS ANSWER TO A QUESTION.

Some would know
Why I so
Long still do tarry,
And ask why
Here that I
Live and not marry.
Thus I those
Do oppose:
What man would be here
Slave to thrall,
If at all
He could live free here?


27. UPON JULIA'S FALL.

Julia was careless, and withal
She rather took than got a fall,
The wanton ambler chanc'd to see
Part of her legs' sincerity:
And ravish'd thus, it came to pass,
The nag (like to the prophet's ass)
Began to speak, and would have been
A-telling what rare sights he'd seen:
And had told all; but did refrain
Because his tongue was tied again.


28. EXPENSES EXHAUST.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
_Small shots paid often waste a vast estate_.

_Shots_, debts.


29. LOVE, WHAT IT IS.

Love is a circle that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of love.


30. PRESENCE AND ABSENCE.

When what is lov'd is present, love doth spring;
But being absent, love lies languishing.


31. NO SPOUSE BUT A SISTER.

A bachelor I will
Live as I have liv'd still,
And never take a wife
To crucify my life;
But this I'll tell ye too,
What now I mean to do:
A sister (in the stead
Of wife) about I'll lead;
Which I will keep embrac'd,
And kiss, but yet be chaste.


32. THE POMANDER BRACELET.

To me my Julia lately sent
A bracelet richly redolent:
The beads I kissed, but most lov'd her
That did perfume the pomander.

_Pomander_, a ball of scent.


33. THE SHOE-TYING.

Anthea bade me tie her shoe;
I did; and kissed the instep too:
And would have kissed unto her knee,
Had not her blush rebuked me.


34. THE CARCANET.

Instead of orient pearls of jet
I sent my love a carcanet;
About her spotless neck she knit
The lace, to honour me or it:
Then think how rapt was I to see
My jet t'enthral such ivory.

_Carcanet_, necklace.
_Lace_, any kind of girdle; used here for the necklace.


35. HIS SAILING FROM JULIA.

When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone
Unto that watery desolation,
Devoutly to thy closet-gods then pray
That my wing'd ship may meet no remora.
Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
And look upon our dreadful passages,
Will from all dangers re-deliver me
For one drink-offering poured out by thee.
Mercy and truth live with thee! and forbear
(In my short absence) to unsluice a tear;
But yet for love's sake let thy lips do this,
Give my dead picture one engendering kiss:
Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell.

_Closet-gods_, the Roman Lares.
_Remora_, the sea Lamprey or suckstone, believed to check the course of
ships by clinging to their keels.


36. HOW THE WALL-FLOWER CAME FIRST, AND WHY SO CALLED.

Why this flower is now call'd so,
List, sweet maids, and you shall know.
Understand, this firstling was
Once a brisk and bonnie lass,
Kept as close as Danaë was:
Who a sprightly springall lov'd,
And to have it fully prov'd,
Up she got upon a wall,
Tempting down to slide withal:
But the silken twist untied,
So she fell, and, bruis'd, she died.
Love, in pity of the deed,
And her loving-luckless speed,
Turn'd her to this plant we call
Now _the flower of the wall_.

_Tempting_, trying.


37. WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR.

These fresh beauties (we can prove)
Once were virgins sick of love.
Turn'd to flowers,--still in some
Colours go and colours come.


38. TO HIS MISTRESS OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER TOYING OR TALKING.

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
You blame me too, because I can't devise
Some sport to please those babies in your eyes:
By love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love when I the least express it.
_Small griefs find tongues_: full casks are ever found
To give (if any, yet) but little sound.
_Deep waters noiseless are_; and this we know,
_That chiding streams betray small depth below_.
So, when love speechless is, she doth express
A depth in love and that depth bottomless.
Now, since my love is tongueless, know me such
Who speak but little 'cause I love so much.

_Babies in your eyes_, see Note.


39. UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESSES.

I have lost, and lately, these
Many dainty mistresses:
Stately Julia, prime of all:
Sappho next, a principal:
Smooth Anthea for a skin
White, and heaven-like crystalline:
Sweet Electra, and the choice
Myrrha for the lute and voice:
Next Corinna, for her wit,
And the graceful use of it:
With Perilla: all are gone;
Only Herrick's left alone
For to number sorrow by
Their departures hence, and die.


40. THE DREAM.

Methought last night Love in an anger came
And brought a rod, so whipt me with the same;
Myrtle the twigs were, merely to imply
Love strikes, but 'tis with gentle cruelty.
Patient I was: Love pitiful grew then
And strok'd the stripes, and I was whole again.
Thus, like a bee, Love gentle still doth bring
Honey to salve where he before did sting.


42. TO LOVE.

I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear
My puling pipe to beat against thine ear.
Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be;
Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me.
He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke,
Submits his neck unto a second yoke.


43. ON HIMSELF.

Young I was, but now am old,
But I am not yet grown cold;
I can play, and I can twine
'Bout a virgin like a vine:
In her lap too I can lie
Melting, and in fancy die;
And return to life if she
Claps my cheek, or kisseth me:
Thus, and thus it now appears
That our love outlasts our years.


44. LOVE'S PLAY AT PUSH-PIN.

Love and myself, believe me, on a day
At childish push-pin, for our sport, did play;
I put, he pushed, and, heedless of my skin,
Love pricked my finger with a golden pin;
Since which it festers so that I can prove
'Twas but a trick to poison me with love:
Little the wound was, greater was the smart,
The finger bled, but burnt was all my heart.

_Push-pin_, a game in which pins are pushed with an endeavor to cross
them.


45. THE ROSARY.

One ask'd me where the roses grew:
I bade him not go seek,
But forthwith bade my Julia show
A bud in either cheek.


46. UPON CUPID.

Old wives have often told how they
Saw Cupid bitten by a flea;
And thereupon, in tears half drown'd,
He cried aloud: Help, help the wound!
He wept, he sobb'd, he call'd to some
To bring him lint and balsamum,
To make a tent, and put it in
Where the stiletto pierced the skin;
Which, being done, the fretful pain
Assuaged, and he was well again.

_Tent_, a roll of lint for probing wounds.


47. THE PARCÆ; OR, THREE DAINTY DESTINIES: THE ARMILLET.

Three lovely sisters working were,
As they were closely set,
Of soft and dainty maidenhair
A curious armillet.
I, smiling, asked them what they did,
Fair Destinies all three,
Who told me they had drawn a thread
Of life, and 'twas for me.
They show'd me then how fine 'twas spun,
And I reply'd thereto,--
"I care not now how soon 'tis done,
Or cut, if cut by you".


48. SORROWS SUCCEED.

When one is past, another care we have:
_Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave_.


49. CHERRY-PIT.

Julia and I did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit:
She threw; I cast; and, having thrown,
I got the pit, and she the stone.

_Cherry-pit_, a game in which cherry-stones were pitched into a small
hole.


50. TO ROBIN REDBREAST.

Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
With leaves and moss-work for to cover me:
And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
For epitaph, in foliage, next write this:
_Here, here the tomb of Robin Herrick is_.


51. DISCONTENTS IN DEVON.

More discontents I never had
Since I was born than here,
Where I have been, and still am sad,
In this dull Devonshire;
Yet, justly too, I must confess
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loathed so much.


52. TO HIS PATERNAL COUNTRY.

O earth! earth! earth! hear thou my voice, and be
Loving and gentle for to cover me:
Banish'd from thee I live, ne'er to return,
Unless thou giv'st my small remains an urn.


53. CHERRY-RIPE.

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones; come and buy.
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer: There,
Where my Julia's lips do smile;
There's the land, or cherry-isle,
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.


54. TO HIS MISTRESSES.

Put on your silks, and piece by piece
Give them the scent of ambergris;
And for your breaths, too, let them smell
Ambrosia-like, or nectarel;
While other gums their sweets perspire,
By your own jewels set on fire.


55. TO ANTHEA.

Now is the time, when all the lights wax dim;
And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him
Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me
Under that Holy-oak or Gospel-tree,
Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon
Me, when thou yearly go'st procession;
Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb
In which thy sacred relics shall have room.
For my embalming, sweetest, there will be
No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee.

_Holy oak_, the oak under which the minister read the Gospel in the
procession round the parish bounds in Rogation week.


56. THE VISION TO ELECTRA.

I dreamed we both were in a bed
Of roses, almost smothered:
The warmth and sweetness had me there
Made lovingly familiar,
But that I heard thy sweet breath say,
Faults done by night will blush by day.
I kissed thee, panting, and, I call
Night to the record! that was all.
But, ah! if empty dreams so please,
Love give me more such nights as these.


57. DREAMS.

Here we are all by day; by night we're hurl'd
By dreams, each one into a sev'ral world.


58. AMBITION.

In man ambition is the common'st thing;
Each one by nature loves to be a king.


59. HIS REQUEST TO JULIA.

Julia, if I chance to die
Ere I print my poetry,
I most humbly thee desire
To commit it to the fire:
Better 'twere my book were dead
Than to live not perfected.


60. MONEY GETS THE MASTERY.

Fight thou with shafts of silver and o'ercome,
When no force else can get the masterdom.


61. THE SCARE-FIRE.

Water, water I desire,
Here's a house of flesh on fire;
Ope the fountains and the springs,
And come all to bucketings:
What ye cannot quench pull down;
Spoil a house to save a town:
Better 'tis that one should fall,
Than by one to hazard all.

_Scare-fire_, fire-alarm.


62. UPON SILVIA, A MISTRESS.

When some shall say, Fair once my Silvia was,
Thou wilt complain, False now's thy looking-glass,
Which renders that quite tarnished which was green,
And priceless now what peerless once had been.
Upon thy form more wrinkles yet will fall,
And, coming down, shall make no noise at all.

_Priceless_, valueless.


63. CHEERFULNESS IN CHARITY; OR, THE SWEET SACRIFICE.

'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighs
Can please those heav'nly deities,
If the vower don't express
In his offering cheerfulness.


65. SWEETNESS IN SACRIFICE.

'Tis not greatness they require
To be offer'd up by fire;
But 'tis sweetness that doth please
Those _Eternal Essences_.


66. STEAM IN SACRIFICE.

If meat the gods give, I the steam
High-towering will devote to them,
Whose easy natures like it well,
If we the roast have, they the smell.


67. UPON JULIA'S VOICE.

So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
As, could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise,
But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.

_Amber_, used here merely for any rich material: cp. "Treading on amber
with their silver feet".


68. AGAIN.

When I thy singing next shall hear,
I'll wish I might turn all to ear
To drink in notes and numbers such
As blessed souls can't hear too much;
Then melted down, there let me lie
Entranc'd and lost confusedly,
And, by thy music stricken mute,
Die and be turn'd into a lute.


69. ALL THINGS DECAY AND DIE.

_All things decay with time_: the forest sees
The growth and downfall of her aged trees;
That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood
The proud dictator of the state-like wood,--
I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak--
Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.

_Lusters_, the Roman reckoning of five years.


70. THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET MONTHS.

First, April, she with mellow showers
Opens the way for early flowers;
Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array;
Next enters June, and brings us more
Gems than those two that went before:
Then (lastly) July comes, and she
More wealth brings in than all those three.


71. NO SHIPWRECK OF VIRTUE. TO A FRIEND.

Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here;
Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear;
But trust to this, my noble passenger;
Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure
(Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure,
And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.

_Bulging_, leaking.


72. UPON HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, MISTRESS ELIZABETH HERRICK.

First, for effusions due unto the dead,
My solemn vows have here accomplished:
Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
Wherein thou liv'st for ever. Dear, farewell.

_Effusions_, drink-offerings.


73. OF LOVE. A SONNET.

How love came in I do not know,
Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
Or whether with the soul it came
(At first) infused with the same;
Whether in part 'tis here or there,
Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
This troubles me: but I as well
As any other this can tell:
That when from hence she does depart
The outlet then is from the heart.


74. TO ANTHEA.

Ah, my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
(_Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak_. )
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.