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11817
ARTES
LIBRARY
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TCEBOR
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:
:
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Boston,
March 1888.
928
4 Sub


from your friend
Ernest
R
My

H
ESPERIDES: POEMS
BY ROBERT HERRICK.
EDITED WITH NOTES
BY HERBERT P. HORNE, AND
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
ERNEST RHYS.

LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24, WARWICK LANE,
AND NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
1887.
828
H 566
180
T
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Argument of his Book
To his Muse
When he would have his
Verses read
On his Book
-Cherry-ripe
The Bag of the Bee
Upon Julia's Recovery
The Scare-fire
To Violets
The Vision to Electra
1
To a Maid
2
3
No Luck in Love.
4
HowPansies, or Heartsease,
came first
To Julia, in her Dawn or
PAGE
25
26
27
5
Daybreak
6
A
Meditation
for his
7
Mistress
• ✔
8
To be Merry
CN & EN
28
29
30
9
10
A Dialogue betwixt Him-
self and Mistress Eliza-
•
The Weeping Cherry..
The Shower of Blossoms
The Rock of Rubies, and
11
beth Wheeler, under the
12
name of Amarillis....
81
What kind of Mistress he
the Quarry of Pearls
13
would have
33
How Lilies came White
The Parliament of Roses
14
Upon Julia's Hair filled
with Dew
34
•
to Julia
15
Love, what it is
35
His Request to Julia.
Upon Love, by way
Question and Answer
On Julia's Breath
A Lyric to Mirth.
To Electra
I call and I call
•
Upon Julia's Voice.
of
The Cheat of Cupid; or,
the Ungentle Guest
•
17
18
16
To Julia
36
•
Upon Cupid
37
A Vow to Venus
38
•
•
To Dianeme
39
19
Not to Love
40
20
Upon Julia's Clothes..
41
• *
21
A Bacchanalian Verse
42
•
•
22
Upon a Delaying Lady
43
To the Water Nymphs,
23
Drinking at the Fountain 44
!!
iv
CONTENTS.
יקה -
To Dianeme
To Silvia..
Love Lightly Pleased
Chop-cherry
48
To Bacchus. A Canticle..
49
PAGE
PAGE

45 | Matins; or, Morning Prayer
46 To Julia
86
87
47 The Kiss. A Dialogue. 88
Julia's Churching, or Puri-
fication
89
No Fault in Women
50
51
The Star Song: a Carol to
the King
90
Delight in Disorder
92
52
53
An Hymn to the Muses...
Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler, under
the Name of the Lost
Shepherdess
Maids' Nays are Nothing..
The Wounded Cupid.
Song..
A Nuptial Song; or, Epi-
thalamie on Sir Clipseby
Crew and his Lady..
To Dianeme
Not Every Day Fit for
}
.96
Corinna's going a-Maying. 93
The Transfiguration
Upon his Kinswoman,
Mistress Bridget Herrick 97
54 The Bracelet to Julia
To his Mistress objecting
to Him neither Toying
nor Talking
•
98
55
99
61
His Covenant or Protesta-
tion to Julia..
100
Verse..
62
His Farewell to Sack..
101
...
Upon Electra..
•
63
Upon the Loss of his Mis-
The Captive Bee; or, The
Little Filcher
tresses..
103
64
To Live Merrily, and to
Trust to Good Verses....
The Departure of the Good
Demon
104
66
Upon Mistress Susanna
Southwell. Her Feet...
69
The Bleeding Hand: or,
the Sprig of Eglantine
Given to a Maid
105
Julia's Petticoat
70
To Primroses filled with
· ·
To Music. A Song
71
Morning Dew
106
•
To Anthea...
72
To Robin Redbreast
108
·
•
A Christmas Carol, sung to
the King in the Presence
at Whitehall..
73
Upon a Lady that Died in
Childbed, and left a
Daughter behind her
109
The New-Year's Gift, or
Circumcision's Song...
The Widows' Tears; or,
75
Dirge of Dorcas
110
Upon Julia's
Unlacing
Herself...
77
An Ode of the Birth of Our
Saviour
114
•
• •
To Electra
78
His Sailing from Julia
116
To Silvia..
79
The Primrose
117
To Music, to becalm his
Fever
80
Upon a Child that Died
His Tears to Thamesis
118
•
119
•
The Dirge of Jephthah's
Daughter: Sung by the
The Wake
120
•
Parcel-gilt Poetry
121
•
Virgins...
·
Upon Himself
82
To Daffodils
122
85
·
An Ode to Sir Clipsby Crew 123
CONTENTS.
V
Upon a Maid..
PAGE
To his Saviour, a Child; a
Present, by a Child.
Soft Music..
A Grace for a Child.
The Country Life……….
A Ternary of Littles, upon
a Pipkin of Jelly sent to
125| Upon Ben Jonson
An Ode for Him
PAGE

176
177
178
179
•
126 Divination by a Daffodil
To the Virgins, to make
181
The Crowd and Company.. 180
A Defence for Women
The Apparition of his
Mistress calling him to
Elysium
127
(128 much of Time
•
The Apron of Flowers....
The Tithe. To the Bride..
129
130
T31
•
a Lady.
His Prayer to Ben Jonson
To Daisies, not to Shut so
Soon...
134
135
136
To the Maids to Walk
Abroad....
137
To Anthea, who may Com-
mand him Anything. 139
Upon Julia, Weeping.
The Fairies...
Upon a Child.
Upon a Maid.
# • ·
•
•
141
142
·
To the Lady Crew, upon
182
the Death of her Child.. 185
Ceremonies for Christmas.. 186
Christmas Eve, another
Ceremony
Ceremonies for Candlemas
Eve
187
188
Upon Bunce. Epigram... 189
Upon Mr. Ben
Ben Jonson,
Epigram.
190
143 Dissuasions from Idleness.. 191
144 His Content in the Country 192
145 An Epitaph upon a Virgin. 193
D L
The Mad Maid's Song.
To his Book..
The Fair Temple :
Oberon's Chapel..
The Temple....
Oberon's Feast..
Fairy Queen..
The Beggar to Mab, the
· •
·
•
147
A Country Life..
or,
On Himself
D
148
What God is
194
199
200
..
149
154
Comfort to a Youth that
had Lost His Love ...... 201
The Ceremonies for Candle-
156
mas Day
202
Oberon's Palace..
• •
•
The Night-piece, to Julia 162
To Groves..
The Old Wives' Prayer.... 165
The Hock Cart; or, Harvest
157
Ceremony upon Candlemas
Eve
203
163
His Age
204
165
The Hag
210
166
•
168
An Ode to Master Endy-
mion Porter, upon his
Brother's Death
211
Home....
The Honeycomb
•
Charms
Another
169 God's Price and Man's Price 213
170 A Pastoral sung to the
Another
171
King..
214
Another
172 To Meadows
216
Another Charm for Stables 173
To Blossoms
To his Paternal Country
217
174
To his dear God
218
•
Alms
175
Suspicion makes Secure.... 219
vi
CONTENTS.
His Grange, or Private
Wealth.
The Olive Branch..
PAGE
220
222
223
226
227
A Thanksgiving to God for
His House .
To Keep a True Lent
Crutches.
Upon his Departure Hence 228
His Return to London..... 245
Dean-Bourn, a rude River
in Devon, by which some-
times he lived..
His Wish to Privacy...
To His Peculiar friend, Mr.
John Wicks..
PAGE

246
.. 247
248
On Himself.…….
229
His Winding-sheet
230
The White
Island: or,
His Poetry his Pillar..
The Bad Season makes the
Poet Sad...
249
251
Place of the Blessed....
232
To a Gentlewoman, object-
Anacreontic
234
To Anthea..
230
His Litany to the Holy
Spirit.....
237
God Hears Us..
240
To his Friend on the Un-
tuneable Times
241
His Last Request to Julia 242
On Himself....
243
Upon
the Troublesome
Times..
244
NOTES
ing to Him his Grey Hairs 252
On Himself.
Comforts in Contentions... 254
His Charge to Julia at his
Death..
To his Book.
Epitaph on the Tomb of
Sir Edward Giles and his
Wife in the South Aisle
of Dean Prior Church,
Devon..
257
259
•
253
255
256
!
:
HERRICK.

H
was
ERRICK'S "Hesperides," which
published at London in 1648, "at the
Crown and Marygold in Saint Paul's
Churchyard," has, with a few other
such distinguished books of antique
verse, the making in it of one of the most delightful
pocket volumes in the world. With a little care
the book falls into shape almost of itself, its weak
and redundant parts slipping away out of sight, and
leaving a store of verse in which a freshness akin
to the simple magic of English folk-song will be
found attuned in a very wonderful way to the perfect
art of the classic verse-writers. Herrick, in fact,
was born at a happy time, when the old English
country life was still fresh to the poet's hand, and
the impulse, carried on from the Latin pastorals
on one hand, and the native folk-songs on the other,
through the work of Spenser, Greene, Marlowe,
and the Elizabethans generally, was still
quickening the poet's brain. Throughout his life
things went to keep Herrick to this natural range
of poetry, and so it is that he, with his inborn
lyrical feeling, has left us potentially contained in
the "Hesperides" almost the ideal book in its kind,
In this little volume the editors have simply tried

viii
HERRICK.
to free it from anything which has tended to hide
its true quality, and so to cast it into quintessential
shape, working from the standard and along the
lines which Herrick himself has seemed to lay
down. Here he is still as natural, as various, as
wilful even, as in his original form, but he is made
more accessible, his book an incomparable one
to take into pleasant country places where the
'Lord-Manufacturer' has not yet set his destroying
heel.
The book "Hesperides" did not appear until
Herrick was fifty-seven years old and at the
end of his career as a poet. In 1648, eleven
years after the death of the master, Ben Jonson,
whom the young poets of thirty years before, and
Herrick with them, had looked up to so devotedly,
the time was late for one of that little clan of
followers to reappear before the world. In that
thirty years stranger things than the death of Ben
Jonson had happened to disturb the conditions of
poetry; but the strangest of all was to follow soon
after the appearance of Herrick's book, to still
more profoundly unsettle them, in the death of
Charles I., with all its train of social and literary
reactions. Otherwise there was nothing very
exceptional in the publication of a book of poems
early in 1648. The republic of letters continued
its work undismayed through all the confusion
and tumult of the Civil War; Milton, Marvell,
Vaughan, Crashaw, Cowley, and others published
books within its period. What was exceptional
about the appearance of "Hesperides" was that it
was the late presentation of the work of a poet who


HERRICK.
ix
was known, if at all, because of old association with
the "sons" of Ben, and who returned to town after
what had really been long exile in
in Devon-
shire, an ejected country parson. Indeed, Herrick
could no longer be a personality in the London
which he had known thirty years before only too
well. He had misgivings himself at last; there is
an inevitable sadness in some of the poems written
when it came near the time of sending forth his
book.
Iyea
"Go thou forth, my book, though late,
Yet be timely fortunate.
It may chance good luck may send
Thee a kinsman or a friend,
That may harbour thee when I
With my fates neglected lie.
If thou know'st not where to dwell,
See, the fire's by.-Farewell."
At this time Herrick, I have said, was fifty-seven
years old. In turning back to give an account of
these years, during which his poetry was in the
making, it will be sufficient to follow, in the main,
the lead of Mr. Grosart, who has brought together
a great quantity of material bearing upon Herrick's
life in his edition of the "Hesperides."
Grosart's memoir is, however, so voluminous as to
be at times confusing, and the aim here has been
to give a simpler account, adding what new touches
and details the present editors have been able to
bring to light.
Mr.
With other of the English poets who stand out
as representative of the high orders of poetry—
as Chaucer, Spenser, Milton - London claims
X
HERRICK.
Herrick too by birth. He was born in Cheapside,
in the August of 1591, having been baptised on the
24th of that month at St. Vedast's Church, Foster
Lane, hard by. His father, Nicholas Herycke—
for the name was variously spelt—was a goldsmith,
who came of a well-known old Leicestershire
family, the Heryckes, or more strictly the Eyrickes,
of Great Stretton. His immediate family pedigree
will be found in the notes; and here it need only be
added that the Eyrickes were no doubt of Norse
descent, as the name implies-the same as the
Norse "Eric." The poet's grandfather, John
Heyricke to use the further variation of spelling
adoped by him-lived, not at Great Stretton
but in Leicester town, and with him the family
entered upon the commercial phase in which its
later members were so successful. It is probable
that John Heyricke was an ironmonger, seeing
that his eldest son who no doubt inherited the
business from him is so described. He was twice
mayor of Leicester, where he lived to the age of
seventy-six, and as a further proof of the vitality of
the Herrick stock, his epitaph may be cited, which
states that for fifty-two years there had not been a
single death under his roof although a large family
of children had grown up there. It is added of his
wife, Marie-"The said Marie departed this life
ye 8th of December 1611, being of the age 97
years. She did see before her departure, of her
children, and her children's children, to the number
of 142."
Of the children we are mainly concerned with
the second son, Nicholas, who settled in London as

HERRICK.
xi
The
a goldsmith, and became father to the poet.
same long life was not to be his, for he died some-
what mysteriously in 1592, little more than a year
after the birth of his famous son. Evidence con-
tained in the family papers shews that he died by
a fall from an upper window of his house, and that
at the time it was supposed he deliberately took
this singular means of putting an end to his life.
The reason for this act does not in any way appear,
and as he left behind him an ample estate, there
could not have been any business difficulties of
moment enough to warrant it. He left enough
wealth, indeed, to excite the greed of the Bishop of
Bristol, as High Almoner, who rested a claim upon
the "
goods and chattels " of the deceased as a
suicide and outlaw, and even succeeded in
obtaining, after much litigation, a sum of £220 as
a satisfaction of his claims. One cannot help con-
jecturing a little about the life and temperament of
Nicholas Herycke. Suicide was not common at
the time, and in the present instance it was
strangely compassed, for the houses at the head of
Cheapside where the goldsmith lived were probably
only two storeys in height, and a fall from the
upper window would not be so necessarily fatal
to recommend itself for suicidal purposes.
Was there the restlessness of imagination in
him, as there was its contained energy in his
son? The whole matter remains obscure. After
his death, the family did not continue long in
Cheapside; the mother appears to have
moved with her seven children to Hampton-on-
Thames, where an eighth child, a son, was born
as
xii
HERRICK.
posthumously. As Herrick was presently to return
to Golden Cheapside," as he terms it in the poem
"His Tears to Thamasis," and as there must
have been frequent visits there in the interval, it is
interesting to know at all the aspect of the houses
and street with which he was so much associated.
This we are fortunately able to do with the aid of
an important drawing described by Mr. Horne in
the notes, to which the reader will find it well to
refer continually for further details of Herrick's
life and surroundings than can be given in this brief
memoir. There, too, will be found a delightful
explanation of the term, "Golden Cheapside.'
">
Herrick's schooldays are a little uncertain. In
the poem just mentioned there is a reference
to Westminster, which Mr. Grosart, following
a suggestion made in another edition by Mr.
Walford, thinks enough to shew that he prob-
ably went to that famous old school. Hampton
Court and other riverside places are also mentioned
in the poem, which is interesting for more than
the reference to boyish amusements, and calls up
circumstances to be pleasantly borne in mind in all
the early part of Herrick's life. The first half
only need be quoted—
"I send, I send here my supremest kiss
To thee, my silver-footed Thamasis.
No more shall I reiterate thy Strand,
Whereon so many stately structures stand:
Nor in the summer's sweeter evenings go,
To bathe in thee (as thousand others do,)
No more shall I along thy crystal glide,
In barge (with boughs and rushes beautified)
HERRICK.
xiii
With soft-smooth virgins (for our chaste disport)
To Richmond, Kingston, and to Hampton Court:
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from, or draw unto the faithful shore:
And landing here, or safely landing there,
Make way to my beloved Westminster,
Or to the Golden-Cheap-side, where the earth
Of Julia Herrick gave to me my birth.'
"
Unfortunately, the early Registers of Westminster
School are lost, but as the conjecture that the boy
was sent there is both the most interesting and the
most probable which can be formed, there is no
harm in accepting it provisionally, and picturing
Herrick as a schoolboy amidst the surroundings of
Westminster, with its noble halls and cloisters and
echoing playgrounds. From other reminiscent
touches in the "Hesperides" we get a general idea
that these boyish days were free and happy, varied
betwixt town and country as boys love to have
them; and there are not many boys who have had
a readier talent for fun and all pleasant boyish
imaginations than Robert Herrick.
In his sixteenth year his schooldays came to an
end, and life began in workaday earnest. In the
autumn of 1607 he was bound apprentice to his
uncle, William Herrick, who was also a goldsmith
in Wood Street, Cheapside. William Herrick was
a younger brother of Nicholas, and had been ap-
pointed guardian to his children, having possibly
succeeded to his business at the same time. He
was a prosperous member of his craft and
trade, possessed of a keen business faculty which,
added to his skill as a craftsman, procured him
xiv
HERRICK.
court patronage. It was probably a little later
than this that he was created Sir William,
because of the skilful boring of a diamond for
the King. From the letters which passed be-
tween the goldsmith and his nephew afterwards,
and from the record of Sir William's grasping
character as a county landlord at a later date,
the young Herrick cannot have found his position
in Wood Street very congenial. In the few years
of his 'prentice life, there must, however, have been
compensations. There is an artistic interest in
goldsmith's work, which Herrick would take a
natural delight in. In the early seventeenth
century splendid gold and silver work was pro-
duced in England, and of course the whole condition
of the art was very different to that found under
the present mechanical order. Herrick had so
keen an appreciation of all beautiful things that
he could not fail to profit by his experience as a
goldsmith, which probably influenced in a way his
whole artistic faculty. An exquisite use of detail
taken from the goldsmith's art will be found in the
poems, and one traces its influence upon him in
more subtle artistic ways still, Taken in its wider
circumstances, the 'prentice life was full of colour
and quick human interest in the time of James I.,
and Herrick, with his happy and imaginative dis-
position, could not have lived in Cheapside without
entering keenly into the spirit of things. In the
early years of James I. the intense Elizabethan
feeling for life and art was still undiminished. The
theatres were never more alluring to youthful fancy.
Shakespeare was in the last splendid phase of




HERRICK.
XV
his dramatic creation: "King Lear," Antony
and Cleopatra," and other of his later plays were
produced about this time. Ben Jonson, who was
to have such influence over Herrick at a later time,
and to whom the youth must have felt peculiarly
drawn from the first, was near the climax of
his fame: "Volpone," the "Alchemist," and the
"Silent Woman " were doubtless seen by Herrick
on their production during these years, quicken-
ing in a hundred ways his sense of poetry. We
turn to these plays now for more than their
dramatic interest, and if we want to realise
the spirit of the daily life in Cheapside, and
London generally, when Herrick was a gold-
smith's apprentice there, no way of doing it will
be found more vivid than by studying certain of
the plays by Ben Jonson, Dekker, Heywood,
and others, with the help of history. It must be
remembered that this was previous to the Great
Fire, and in addition to the old-fashioned aspect
then of Cheapside itself, old St. Paul's gave
life to the whole neighbourhood. These were
the days when the Middle Aisle of St. Paul's was
the recognised place of meeting for merchants,
loungers, beggars, and so forth; it was
it was the
Exchange, the 'Row,' the fashionable and un-
fashionable resort of the time.
There were other reasons, probably, beyond
Herrick's uncongenial position under his uncle
for his growing discontented with his life as a
goldsmith's apprentice. It is rarely that a youth
of imaginative temper rests contented on the verge
of manhood with the everyday surroundings

xvi
HERRICK.
provided for him; a widening of the horizon, actual
and ideal, is sure to be sooner or later restlessly
longed for. As he grew older, Herrick's artistic
impulse would drive him to seek new opportunities
to give it play. Glimpses of the well-known poets
moving in the free and generous art atmosphere
of London then, of Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher,
and their fellows, must often have occurred to fire
his ambition. Most of these men, and those especi-
ally to whom Herrick felt most drawn, had been
university men, and naturally his desires turned
towards Oxford or Cambridge as being the nearest
way of realising his ambition. However this may
have been, it is at any rate certain that before his
apprenticeship was out Herrick had somehow
managed to free himself from his bond to his uncle,
and had escaped to Cambridge.
How Sir William took the matter we have no
means of knowing exactly, but it must have been quite
against his will. A considerable moiety of Herrick's
small inheritance must have been compromised in
binding him apprentice, and ensuring him an
interest in the business, and the goldsmith would
naturally resent any diversion of this money. Be-
sides, there was the uncertainty of the outlook in
any other profession that his nephew might adopt.
There are some interesting letters extant from the
undergraduate to his uncle, which show that there
was friction in their business relationship, and which
cast much light upon the whole of Herrick's univer-
sity life. The first of these letters, of which there
are fourteen in all, is dated September 1613,
when Herrick was twenty-two, and it seems likely
HERRICK.
xvii
therefore, as it was evidently written not long after
his arrival at the university, that it was on his reach-
ing his twenty-first year that he went there. In the
second letter, in an appeal for money, he speaks of
the straits he is reduced to: " did you but know,"
he writes, "how disfurnished I came to Cambridg,
without bedding (which I yet want) and other neces-
saries, you would (as I now trust you will) better your
thoughts towards me, considering of my forc't
expense. Sr, I entreat you to furnish me with ten
pounds this quarter; for the last money which I
receaud came not till the last quarter had almost
spent it self, which now constraines me so suddenly
to write for more. Good Sr, forbeare to censure
me as prodigall, for I endeuour rather to strengthen
(then debilitate) my feeble familie fortune. I
should fill much paper, if I should follow my
passions; but I will break off, only entreating you
(yf there be no waye for me to leade a lyfe here)
that then you would write me your counsell how
I maye learn to liue." This letter is endorsed, "To
his most carefull Vncle Sr Willi: Hearick dwelling
at London in Wood-streete," and elsewhere in it he
writes of "some sparkes of your conceald affection,"
in which we may agree with Mr. Grosart that
there lurks a touch of irony. The third of these
letters, in some respects the most suggestive of all,
is academic and even Euphuistic in style, a
delicious specimen of an undergraduate's letter
to a strict, and conceivably stupid, guardian. It
forms an interesting prose complement, moreover, to
the "
Hesperides." In this again I think there is
a touch of irony to be detected in its Euphuistic
b
xviii
HERRICK.
W
ין
exaggerations. The opening sentences give a fair
idea of the whole. The words in square brackets
are inserted to supply the place of those lost through
the fraying of the edges of the original MS. —
Qui timide rogat,
Negare docet.
Are the minds of men immutable? and will they
rest in only one opinion without the least per-
spicuous shewe of chaing? Oh no, they cannot,
for Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis:
it is an old but yet young saying in our age,
as times chainge, so mens minds are altered:
O would [it] weere seene, for then some pittying
Planet would with a dr[op of] deaw refreash my
withered hopes, and giue a lyfe to that which [is
about?] to die; the bodie is preserued by foode,
and lyfe by hope, which (but wanting either of
these conseruers) faint, feare, fall, freese & die.
'Tis in your power to cure all, to infuse by a
profusion a double lyfe into a single bodie..
>>
All through his university life, Herrick continued
in the same awkward dependence upon his
uncle. According to Mr. Grosart, he went to
Cambridge first of all with the idea of studying
for the church, but there can be no certainty in
this, and it is more likely that he merely effected
his escape thither with the general idea of further-
ing his literary ambition. At the same time he
may have done so under the plea of keeping the
church or the law in view. The issue of his visits
to the theatres in his 'prentice days might well
be a lurking desire to write for the stage himself,
HERRICK.
xix
on
and now that Ben Jonson had made it seem indis-
pensable to have an immense academic equipment
for the poet's work, it would be natural to wish to
follow his example. While an undergraduate,
Herrick must have been gradually claiming
acquaintance with him and his sons
his visits to town, bringing a "lyric-offering" on
occasion to present to the “ arch-poet." At the
university, life at this time was free and unres-
trained, to say the least of it, and Herrick, with
his hot Norse blood, was not of a nature to hold
aloof. There are plentiful traces of this in Hes-
perides," as in the "Farewell unto Poetrie," quoted
by Mr. Grosart.
"We
•
(6
have spent our time
Both from the morning to the evening chime;
Nay, till the bell-man of the night had toll'd
Past noon of night, yet were the hours not old,
Nor dull'd with iron sleeps, but have out-worn
The fresh and fairest flourish of the morn
With flame, and rapture; drinking to the odd
Number of wine, which makes us full with God.
And in that mystic frenzy, we have hurled
(As with a tempest) nature through the world,
And in a whirl-wind twirl'd her home, aghast
At that which in her ecstasy had past."
((
In one of the later letters to his uncle, Herrick
asks whether it were better for me to direct my
study towards the lawe or not," and this, taken
with the other evidence cited above, shows that he
did not at any rate regard himself as a divinity
student at the time. The last letter of all is
written from “Trinity Hall, Cambridge; from
whose Registry it is found that he took his B.A.
>>
XX
HERRICK.
in 1616-17, and his M.A. in 1620, when he appears
to have left Cambridge and ended his university
career.
It is not clear how he spent the seven or eight
years which follow, but they fix themselves vividly
in his history through the intimate association with
Ben Jonson, no longer so supreme in authority,
but still an autocrat in the eyes of younger poets
to whom it was an honour to attend those
"lyric feasts" celebrated in the "Ode to Ben
Jonson." When Herrick came to town, the
Mermaid," Mitre," and 'Windmill" Taverns,
formerly in vogue, seem to have dropped out of
fashion, and to have given way to others—"The
Sun," "The Dog," "The Triple Tun," as alluded to
by Herrick in the Ode :-
((
(C
"Ah Ben !
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun;
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad?
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
At these taverns, where the poets and their fol-
lowers met of a night when the afternoon per-
formances in the theatres were over, the symposia
were sufficiently wild, if not mad. Ben Jonson
himself was a giant in his cups, and set his
'sons" no doubtful example, quaffing canary and
sack in bumpers unrestrained by a modern
brain worker's misgivings.

HERRICK.
xxi
Here, to him and his festive crew of rhymesters,
we can imagine Herrick entering, to be hailed with
a laughing shout of welcome, on many a memor-
able night in these years. In 1621 Herrick was
thirty years old, and so far as we can conjecture
from the absurd portrait which has been perpetu-
ated in various editions of "Hesperides," he
must have been of a singularly striking presence.
At this time something of the slender grace of
youth remained, we may suppose, to chasten the
florid robustness which marked his appearance in
later manhood; but the Roman cast of feature,
the large nose, the keen, laughing eyes, the curling
hair, the full jaw and throat, which completed his
powerful physique, must have made him a per-
sonality of remark even amid such a group of men
of virile individuality as surrounded Ben Jonson.
It is well, perhaps, in passing-since all writers upon
Herrick have previously accepted without misgiving
the portrait in question-to direct the readers to
the Notes for the reasons which exist to prove this
portrait unsatisfactory.
However Herrick managed to eke out his small
inheritance in these years, it is clear from "Hes-
perides," and its collection of miniatures of those
who formed his social circle, that his life was at
any rate humanly well filled. As we read through
the poems, we gather the references which show
how pleasant life must have seemed to him at this
time. In especial, we feel this as we linger over
the inestimable charm of the poems to Julia, to
Silvia, to Anthea, and to others. Of these, Julia
separates herself from the rest as the enthroned

xxii
HERRICK.
lady of his heart and mind,-a woman of
affluent beauty, of endless allurement,
"dearest
of thousands," as he still passionately acclaimed
her, when the end of all seemed approaching, and
he could look back over the light and shade of
her whole story.
During these years in London, when he probably
had some uncertain connection with the court and
political life to keep him more or less occupied,
Herrick, no doubt, lived very much according to the
fashion of the time, without any great ethical
impulse to interfere with the fulness of pleasure.
But the life seems to have palled upon him at last,
and the death of his mother, in 1629, may have
served to give this impulse a determination,
although, as she all but ignored her famous son in
her will, and as he in his turn never once mentions?.
Hesperides," there cannot have been any
unusual affection on either side. This as it may
be, Herrick took orders the same year, and was
\ presented to the living of Dean Prior, in Devon;
and we know that it was not mere expediency
which drove him to this step, for, as Mr. Grosart
points out, he expressly disclaims this in his
"Farewell unto Poetry." "It is not need," he
says,-
her in "
"But 'tis the God of nature who intends
And shapes my function for more glorious ends.'"
"
In the "Hesperides we find a series of delight-
ful pictures of Herrick's life at Dean Prior; the poet
in his guise of pastoral hermit celebrates, even to
the most realistic details, his solitary life there,

HERRICK.
xxiii
from which it is clear that after the social stir of
London and Whitehall it must have seemed
strange indeed to him. In those days Devonshire
was as remote as Nova Scotia is now; Herrick
seems to have gone thither by sea, from the Thames
to Plymouth, which was, in fact, the speediest route.
Mr. Grosart gives a description of the Dean Prior
neighbourhood as it is to-day, which shows us
a charming spot worthy to be associated for all
time with the exquisite pastoral verse of the
"Hesperides." The road there from Brent, a place
about sixteen miles from Plymouth, approaches it
by quiet hamlets and pleasant meadows, with here
and there glimpses of distant hills; and presently,
fording a stream, where a little stone foot-bridge
crosses alongside, the narrow lane is reached
which leads down to Dean Church. Here, looking
down from the high-road, the traveller sees the
church and vicarage, with surrounding farm-
buildings and cottages, set amid trees in a deep
and narrow valley. Dean Prior lies about a mile
further on, with Dean Court, "now a farm, but
anciently a great manor-house," hard by. During
part of Herrick's residence, Dean Court was
occupied by Sir Edward Giles, the Lord of the
Manor, whose epitaph, discovered by Mr. Grosart,
we add at the end of this volume. The stream
which Herrick addressed not very respectfully in
the poem
"To Dean Bourne, a rude River in
Devon by which sometimes he lived," flows from
the moor and through one of the coombs," or
deep and narrow valleys common in this part of
Devonshire, and passes close to Dean Prior.

xxiv
HERRICK.
In these primitive surroundings Herrick lived
henceforward with little other society than that of
the narrow circle of rustics and yeomen.
No
doubt he managed to make occasional visits to
London, and there were friends in the country
at whose houses he was welcome-"his peculiar
friend, Mr. John Wickes," and others, celebrated
in "Hesperides;" but it was the quiet and
solitary days and weeks at the vicarage which
gave this period of his life its real colouring.
From some of the poems, such as "A Thanks-
giving to God for his House," we know that he at
least lived simply under the homely rule of his
housekeeper, Prue, and that his life was in keeping
with the native rusticity of the place. Traditions
of his residence there still lingered until late years
among the older people of the place, and Mr.
Grosart gives us an interesting account of some of
these-of his having once thrown his sermon at the
head of his congregation for inattention; of the
tame pig which followed him about, and which he
had taught to drink out of a tankard; and of
sundry other small memories of a like kind.
One old woman, Dorothy King, who remembered
some of these things, had been taught his Litany in
her youth, and was in the habit of repeating it
at bedtime, which shows that he must have made
his poetry to some degree a factor in his pastoral
rule over the simple villagers. On another side, no
doubt he used the epigrams, coarsely realistic in
their satire as many of them are, which treated of
the personal defects of certain of his parishioners,
as Master Mudge, or Prickles, or Mistress Bridget,

HERRICK.
XXV
in a similar way, and we can imagine him returning
to his threshold chuckling over some rhymed joke
of the kind with which he had just set the rustics
grinning at some grotesque offender against truth
or decency. These epigrams are worth nothing as
poetry, but they are full of interest as illustrating
his life as a country parson. After all that he
could do to occupy himself, however, there could not
fail to be a remainder of utter ennui, during those
long winters when the rain fell day after day, and
Dean Prior seemed quite shut away from the world.
At such times, no wonder that he often felt an irre-
pressible longing to get back to London, and its life
and cheerful stir. This very isolation was good for
his work in poetry, nevertheless, as he confessed
more than once in the same breath with which he
began to grumble :—
"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 loath'd so much.'
"}
Many of the poems which we consider to-day as
most quintessentially Herrick's were the product
of this quiet life, which was, in truth, happily ar-
ranged to make such an imagination as his fertile.
The coming of spring, the full presence of summer,
the passing autumn, scored the rustic year with an
endless change of idyllic subjects: then came the
long winter nights, with the solitary fireside to brood

xxvi
HERRICK.
over, until all should be turned to account in song.
Now, indeed, he knew more and more the sadness
of things, and began to moralise his flowers and
maidens in verse, adding the sigh that ends with
such infinite suggestion many of the lyrics of this
time. Now, thinking often upon Julia, and those
old years of passion, the memory grows too sorrow-
ful, and he takes the last imagination of all for that
superb nature, whose gracious beauty had driven
him long ago through the poet's richest symbolism
to express it.
Meanwhile a great scene-shifting had been going
on at the centre of things. Charles I. had suc-
ceeded to James, and the moral sentiment of the
nation had taken form and strength, stirred by the
dangers of irresponsible monarchy, and had at last
reached the point of revolution. With the victory
of the Commonwealth came the ejection of the
Royalist parsons from their livings, and Herrick
had to submit with the rest. Unlike most of his
fellows, however, he submitted with alacrity. The
old, irrepressible love for London was still in him, and
he returned to "Golden Cheapside," now so golden,
alas, no longer and to beloved Westminster,"
with the eager-heartedness of a returned exile.
CC
"From the dull confines of the drooping west,
To see the day spring from the fragrant east,
Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blest place of my nativity.
O place! O people! manners! framed to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.

HERRICK.
xxvii
London my home is; though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call'd back, henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess'd by thee!"
It was only under the stimulus of this impending
recall that he set to work to put in order his poems
for the press.
It is significant that the pieces
which were the latter outcome of his life as a
country parson, and which form an appendix to
the "Hesperides" proper, under the title of "Noble
Numbers," were printed separately first of all; for
this part of the book has a separate title-page which
is dated 1647. This goes to show that he had some
thought first of all of appealing to the graver spirit
of the time, following the example of George Her-
bert, some traces of whose influence are to be found
in the later religious pieces.
With the publication of his book ends that part
of his life which most concerns us, although it
would be interesting to trace his doings in the
years which he spent in London while the great
struggle of the Commonwealth was going on.
But we have little evidence to show what the
course of his life hereafter was, and we can only
conjecture how he spent these years, gravely
absorbed as old age grew upon him in watching
the process of social and political change, and
noting sadly the loss of old friends and the disrup-
tion of old ties. For it is an utter mistake to think
that he was apathetic in the later period at Dean
Prior, while things grew darker all around. It is
because people have usually read his book with an
cyc only to detached beauties, and with no seeing

xxviii
HERRICK.
of its coherency and of the intimate history of the
life written in it, that the conception of Herrick
as an irresponsible rhymester, concerned only
with primroses and country damsels amid great
national trouble, has arisen. The note of a pro-
found apprehension of the dangers in which the
country was being involved is heard throughout his
later verse; and if we only had any expression of
his upon the course of affairs while the tragedy at
Whitehall was being enacted, and the stern grasp
of the Puritan tightened upon the careless arm of
the Cavalier, there is no doubt it would be a pro-
foundly sad one. Indeed, there is nothing more
suggestive in the history of Herrick than the way
in which he who set out with all the young poet's
joyous impulse to pleasure, in its fullest heat and
unrestraint, was led by the monitions of change
and disaster to the graver reach of the imagination
found in his later poems.
The only thing which serves to throw any light
on Herrick's occupations during those years is the
tradition lingering in Devonshire that he was the
original compiler of "Poor Robin's Almanack,"
which was first published in 1661. After examining
the almanack for some of the following years—the
first one for 1661 not being in the possession of the
British Museum-I am inclined to agree with Mr.
Grosart that it bears traces of a hand very like
Herrick's. In more than the detailed passages
cited as proof, however, it seems to me to show
this. The whole conception of the almanack is ?
humorous and ironical one; it is really a travesty
of the ordinary almanacks of that time, which were


HERRICK.
xxix
CC
filled with charms, and spells, and superstitions,
and pretentious weather-lore. In Poor Robin's
Almanack" all these are ironically exaggerated to
the point of absurdity, with often very comic effect.
Indeed, the main idea of the Almanack is very
much in the spirit of Herrick; and if he was its
originator, it shows that he must have engaged to
some extent in literary work during these later
years in London.
At the Restoration Herrick returned to Dean
Prior, after all feeling no doubt in the increase of
years upon him and the desire of old age for quiet,
the silence and solitude of the life there in a new
and grateful way. So he lived on, to an age worthy
of the long-lived race of which he came, dying at
length in 1674 at the age of eighty-four. He was
buried in the church at Dean Prior, where a
memorial tablet has latterly been erected in his
memory, but the exact position of the grave is
unknown. And it is fittest that he should die and
be buried in the quiet Devonshire hamlet from
which he drew so much of his happiest inspiration,
and which will always be associated now with the
endless charm of the "Hesperides."
At last, in turning to the Hesperides" as the
perfect outcome of Herrick's life, the importance is
felt of looking upon the book, not as a mere collec-
tion of exquisite verses, but as a presentation of the
hidden history of its author's mind. Without this
feeling for the book as a whole, the reader will
miss much of its life and its inner spirit, and run
the risk of even finding its graces pall in the end.
So, here we have wished to show Herrick fairly as

XXX
HERRICK.
he was, not disguising him, not hiding aught of his
whole nature. For a poet is given to his day and
generation, and to all time, by right of person-
ality and faculty of expression; and as he was
first given, he must, within the insuperable limits
of excellence in his art, continue to us, by that
law of integrity which cannot be set aside at
will, as the world imagines, reasoning from false
notions which have no part or lot in poetry. The
ordering of the poems in this volume is intended
to preserve this integrity of expression as far as
possible, without attempting to formalise them
unduly in any way, which is the main difference
between our selection and the admirable one of
Professor F. T. Palgrave. Here, then, as it is
said by Mr. Horne, "it is possible to follow
broadly the change from Herrick's early poems,
with their supreme daintiness and touch of
Elizabethan conceit, to his later work, with its
almost classical severity, and feel the gradual
growth of the delicate pathos increase by bitter
degrees, until at length it breaks out into those
piercing cries frequent enough among his later
poems.'
Herrick will always be remembered, in the last
resort, because of the score or so of almost perfect
lyrics which he has added to English poetry, which,
indeed, are of the very heart of song; but his book
will win its way now, too, let us hope, more and
more, as a whole. With the informing charm of
his individuality, there is the more obvious pastoral
motive to give it unity. The invitation which Her-
rick offers in his first poem, "The Argument of His
HERRICK.
xxxi
Book," surely the most irresistible pastoral prologue
ever written, is fulfilled to the last letter of its
promise. Beside the familiar snatches of song on
rustic subjects, Herrick provides us with a little
scenery of his own for background, taken from
Dean Prior, which gives a certain local habitation
to the whole. His power of suggesting a great deal
by a simple touch of description is remarkable, as
in "A Thanksgiving to God for His House" and
other of the poems descriptive of his life in Devon-
shire. However, it is not in these descriptive pieces)
but in the lyrics, pure and simple, whether they
treat of things pastoral or not; that Herrick's
peculiar charm most resides. Here his quality is
often supreme; none of our English lyric poets
has shown a more perfect sense of words and of
their musical efficiency, none has united so ex-
quisitely a classic sense of form to that impulsive
tunefulness which, we have come to consider as
essentially English. In his earlier lyrics Herrick
has perhaps more of this impulse, but it served him
with the same youthful freshness to the last. At
times it results in a strain like a snatch of pure
folk-song, as in the inimitable lines "To be merry,'
in which Herrick took a striking phrase from one
of the characters in Dekker's delightful comedy,
"The Shoemaker's Holiday," which was performed
in London during the days of his 'prenticeship in
Cheapside, and turned it by the merest transposition
of words into rhyme.
"Let's now take our time,
While we're in our prime,
And old, old age is afar off:
>>
xxxii
HERRICK.
For the evil, evil days
Will come on apace
Before we can be aware of."
It is the way in which Herrick adds to and com-
pletes this natural lyrical impulse by the further grace
of verse taught by the Latin verse-writers and their
English disciples, that makes him so consummate
an artist within his range. It is impossible,
indeed, to read far in "Hesperides
Hesperides" without
being reminded of the verse of others. In the
notes will be found some account of Herrick's
indebtedness to Catullus, Horace, Martial, and
others, and the resemblances to Greene, Ben
Jonson, and certain English poets are still more
striking. Of all these Ben Jonson, however, was
his chief master as we know by a hundred subtle
traces of those "lyric feasts" of old, for much even
of the manner of Jonson's verse is copied by
Herrick, and one surmises that when at last he con-
sciously set himself to shape his scattered verses
into the book "Hesperides," he took for his
pattern the “Underwoods," deriving further sug-
gestions, too, from the “ Epigrams and "The
Forest." But, in Herrick's poems, in even the
most direct of his adaptations, it is found that he
always invests them with the subtle flavour which
gives his verse its distinction, as he claims in
easing his conscience on this matter of plagiarism.
These," he says of his poems,-
(C
""
"These are the children I have left,
Adopted some; none got by theft,
But all are toucht (like lawful plate),
And no verse illegitimate."
HERRICK.
xxxiii
After resolving as much of the fine quality of the
Hesperides" into elements derived from other
poets as we will, there still remains this indi-
vidual note, which is unlike anything else in
poetry. It is only needed to recall some of those
well-known pieces given in almost every volume of
verse selections, such as, "To Anthea," "To
Daffodils," and so on, to feel this at once. There is
magic in these lyrics, that indefinable quality, born
of the spirit, which can alone avail in the end to
make poetry live. This we feel most in some of
the least elaborate pieces, as "To Meadows,"
which could not possibly have been written by any-
one but Herrick-and which, once read, lingers in
the ear with its sighing rhythm for ever. In this
way, too, "The Mad Maid's Song" affects one
inexpressibly with its pathetic fantasy, and simple,
pitiful cadences,
"Good morrow to the day so fair;
Good morning, sir, to you.
Good morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew.
Good morning to this primrose too;
Good morrow to each maid
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
Wherein my love is laid.
Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack, and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee
Which bore my love away!
"Good morrow to the day so fair!"
Here, too,
is magic, and this is as much as one dares to say
C
כן
~
?


xxxiv
HERRICK.
about so elusive a thing. This inimitable grace
lurks in all Herrick's poems of ballad-form, as
again in “The Cheat of Cupid," which shows one
side of his exquisite art, as his stanzas of
terse couplets, with the true Latin ring in them,
shew the other. It is instructive to set over
against the dainty narrative skill of "The Cheat
of Cupid" such lines as those from the poem
Upon Julia's Recovery," in which Herrick works
out the charming conception that the flowers have
been suffering in sympathy with Julia during her
illness:
"Droop, droop no more, or hang the head,
Ye roses almost witheréd ;
Now strength, and newer purple get,
Each here declining violet.
O primroses! let this day be
A resurrection unto ye.'
Many of the other verses about Julia are equally
perfect, as the exquisite quatrain, "Upon Julia's
Voice," unsurpassed for expression :-
"So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
As could they hear, the damned would make no noise,
But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber."
It is in such lines as these, and again in such as
those two from the "Epitaph upon a Virgin,”-
"Here a solemn fast we keep,..
While all beauty lies asleep,'
that Herrick's true distinction is shown, and that is a
charm which has not manifested itself often in all
HERRICK.
XXXV
(6
literature. Two such lines, indeed, seem to me
worth reams of modern sonnet-writing! This
simple grace of utterance is very deceptive;
it appears so easy to attain to, so unlike the
flowery and grandiose euphemisms of the nine-
teenth century verse-writer. But even the critics
have been misled by this simplicity. In the
notice of Herrick in Professor T. H. Ward's
anthology of "The English Poets," Mr. Edmund
Gosse, who has here and again in his Seven-
teenth Century Studies" written appreciatively
and at length upon Herrick's poetry, complains
of his " verse-music" that it is often "excessively
mundane;" and this, no doubt, reflects a common
opinion. But in the end it will be found perhaps
that simple songs like Herrick's, based upon the
eternal law of the response of poetry to music
and to the natural idioms of human speech, and
perfected by great artistic patience and sense of
proportion, will avail for ends of truth and beauty
long after other more elaborate exercises in verse
are forgotten. And if the younger writers who
feel the impulse to expression in verse to-day would
only take to heart something of Herrick's simpli-
city, something of his artistic sincerity, and some-
thing of his endless devotion to his art, there might
be some hope at last of the forthcoming of that new
poetry which at present we seem to be waiting for
in vain.
In conclusion, beside the acknowledgment due
to those mentioned in the foregoing pages, whose
various labour on behalf of Herrick has here
xxxvi
HERRICK.
been drawn upon, I have above all to express
the infinite indebtedness of all who love Herrick
to Miss Beatrice Horne, to whose devoted care in
the editing of his poems any last excellence which
this little volume may be found to have is due.
ERNEST RHYS.
THE EDITOR'S NOTE.
IT has been our endeavour to furnish a text which shall
be at once, both in the selection and arrangement, not
only critical, but suggestive. Any selection of worth
must obviously be critical, but not so the arrangement of
the selected pieces. In the present case we have at-
tempted to place them, I was about to say in chrono-
logical order, but that would be an absurdity, since there
are not above a dozen of Herrick's poems to which we
can assign a date with any sureness. However, it is
possible to follow broadly the change from Herrick's
early poems with their supreme daintiness and touch of
Elizabethan conceit to his later work with its almost
classical severity, and feel the gradual growth of the deli-
cate pathos increase by bitter degrees until at length it
breaks out into those piercing cries frequent enough
among his latest poems. This, it seems to us, is possible,
and this we have striven to realise; though to effect even
this much of the sequence must needs be wholly fanciful.
But our excuse and assurance is, that though such
an attempt should fail entirely as a piece of historical
xxxviii
THE EDITOR'S NOTE.
criticism, it could scarcely be able to avoid being eminently
suggestive; so suggestive, we hope, this little labour of
ours will be found.
In the few instances where a date could be given with
any certainty, we have done so, appending it to the poem,
in brackets. The text has been collated throughout with
the original edition of 1647-8: and whenever it has been
possible, we have preserved Herrick's punctuation and
spelling of obsolete words. Those of the notes which
we have merely transcribed from the editions of Dr.
Grosart and Mr. Palgrave, we have marked severally
with a G or P; but any one conversant with their valu-
able annotations will see how largely we have elsewhere
been indebted to them. The dictionaries of Bailey,
Nares, and Skeat we have freely drawn upon: still we
hope our notes will be found to contain some little that
is new and worthy of attention.
Finally we have to acknowledge our indebtedness to
Mr. A. J. Hipkins for kindly arranging one of Henry
Lawes' songs for this edition; and to Mr. Selwyn Image
for a long series of suggestions of the very highest value
with regard to the selection of the poems.
HERBERT P. HORNE.
1
HESPERIDES.
५
HESPERIDES.
17
Upon Love, by way of Question and
Answer.
I BRING ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Like and dislike ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do ?
Ans. Stroke ye, to strike ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Love will befool ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Heat ye, to cool ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Love gifts will send ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Stock ye, to spend eye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Love will fulfill ye.
I bring ye love. Ques. What will love do?
Ans. Kiss ye, to kill ye.
245
18
HESPERIDES.
On Julia's Breath.
BREATHE, Julia, breathe, and I'll protest,
Nay more, I'll deeply swear
That all the spices of the East
Are circumfusèd there.
HESPERIDES.
19
A Lyric to Mirth.
WHILE the milder fates consent,
Let's enjoy our merriment ;
Drink, and dance, and pipe, and play,
Kiss our dollies night and day;
Crowned with clusters of the vine,
Let us sit and quaff our wine;
Call on Bacchus, chant his praise,
Shake the thyrse and bite the bays;
Rouse Anacreon from the dead,
And return him drunk to bed;
Sing o'er Horace; for ere long
Death will come and mar the song :
Then shall Wilson and Gotiere
Never sing or play more here.
4-
20
HESPERIDES.
To Electra.
MORE white than whitest lilies far,
Or snow, or whitest swans you are:
More white than are the whitest creams,
Or moonlight tinselling the streams:
More white than pearls, or Juno's thigh,
Or Pelops' arm of ivory.
True, I confess, such whites as these
May me delight, not fully please;
Till, like Ixion's cloud, you be
White, warm, and soft, to lie with me.
HESPERIDES.
21
I call and I call.
I CALL, I call. Who do ye call?
The maids to catch this cowslip ball:
But since these cowslips fading be,
Troth, leave the flowers, and maids take me.
Yet, if that neither you will do,
Speak but the word, and I'll take you.
22
HESPERIDES.
Upon Julia's Voice.
So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
As, could they hear, the damned would make no noise,
But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.
HESPERIDes.
23
The Cheat of Cupid; or, the Ungentle
Guest.
ONE silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.
"Who's that," said I,
"beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
"Cast off," said he, "all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.
For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swervèd ;
And all with show'rs wet through,
And e'en with cold half starvèd."
I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper lighted;
And did myself disclose
Unto the lad benighted.
I saw he had a bow,
And wings too, which did shiver;
And looking down below,
I spied he had a quiver.
24
HESPERIDEs.
I to my chimney's shine
Brought him, as Love professes,
And chafed his hands with mine,
And dried his dropping tresses.
But when he felt him warmed,
"Let's try this bow of ours
And string, if they be harmed,"
Said he, "with these late show'rs."
Forthwith his bow he bent,
And wedded string and arrow,
And struck me that it went
Quite through my heart and marrow.
Then laughing loud, he flew
Away, and thus said flying,
"( Adieu, mine host, adieu,
I'll leave thy heart a-dying."
HESPERIDES.
25
1
To a Maid.
You say you love me; that I thus must prove;
If that you lie, then I will swear you love.
26
HESPERIDES.
How Pansies, or Heartsease, came
first.
FROLIC virgins once these were,
Over-loving, living here:
Being here their ends denied,
Ran for sweethearts mad, and died.
Love, in pity of their tears,
And their loss in blooming years,
For their restless here-spent hours,
Gave them heart's-ease turned to flow'rs.
HESPERIDES.
27
No Luck in Love.
I DO love I know not what ;
Sometimes this and sometimes that:
All conditions I aim at.
But, as luckless, I have yet
Many shrewd disasters met,
To gain her whom I would get.
Therefore, now I'll love no more,
As I've doted heretofore :
He who must be, shall be poor.

28
HESPERIDES.
To Julia, in her Dawn or Daybreak.
By the next kindling of the day,
My Julia, thou shalt see,
Ere Ave-Mary thou canst say,
I'll come and visit thee.
Yet ere thou counsell'st with thy glass,
Appear thou to mine eyes
As smooth and nak'd as she that was
The prime of Paradise.
If blush thou must, then blush thou through
A lawn, that thou may'st look
As purest pearls or pebbles do
When peeping through a brook.
As lilies shrined in crystal, so
Do thou to me appear;
Or damask roses, when they grow
To sweet acquaintance there.


HESPERIDES.
29
A Meditation for his Mistress.
1
You are a Tulip seen to-day,
But, dearest, of so short a stay,
That where you grew, scarce man can say.
You are a lovely July-flower,
Yet one rude wind, or ruffling shower,
Will force you hence, and in an hour.
You are a sparkling Rose i' th' bud,
Yet lost, ere that chaste flesh and blood
Can show where you or grew, or stood.
You are a full-spread, fair-set Vine,
And can with tendrils love entwine,
Yet dried, ere you distil your wine.
You are like Balm, inclosed well
In amber, or some crystal shell,
Yet lost ere you transfuse your smell.
You are a dainty Violet,
Yet withered, ere you can be set
Within the virgin's coronet.
You are the queen all flowers among,
But die you must, fair maid, ere long,
As he, the maker of this song.

30
HESPERIDES.
To be Merry.
LET'S now take our time,
While we're in our prime,
And old, old age is afar off:
For the evil, evil days
Will come on apace,
Before we can be aware of.

HESPERIDES.
31
A Dialogue betwixt Himself and Mistress
Elizabeth Wheeler, under the name of
Amarillis.
My dearest love, since thou wilt go,
And leave me here behind thee,
For love or pity, let me know
The place where I may find thee.
Amaril. In country meadows, pearled with dew
And set about with lilies,
There, filling maunds with cowslips, you
May find your Amarillis.
Her. What have the meads to do with thee,
Or with thy youthſul hours?
Live thou at court, where thou may'st be
The queen of men, not flowers.
Let country wenches make 'em fine
With posies, since 'tis fitter
For thee with richest gems to shine,
And like the stars to glitter.
32
HESPERIDES.
Amaril. You set too high a rate upon
A shepherdess so homely.
Her. Believe it, dearest, there's not one
I' th' court that's half so comely.
I prithee stay. Amaril. I must away;
Let's kiss first, then we'll sever.
Ambo. And though we bid adieu to-day,
We shall not part for ever.
HESPERIDES.
33
What kind of Mistress he would have.
BE the mistress of my choice
Clean in manners, clear in voice :
Be she witty more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise:
Be she showing in her dress
Like a civil wilderness,
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect:
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers-by,
And each ringlet of her hair
An enchantment or a snare,
For to catch the lookers-on,
But herself held fast by none:
Let her Lucrece all day be,
Thais in the night to me:
Be she such as neither will
Famish me nor over-fill.
246
34
HESPERIDES.
Upon Julia's Hair filled with Dew.
DEW sat on Julia's hair,
And spangled too,
Like leaves that laden are
With trembling dew:
Or glittered to my sight
As when the beams
Have their reflected light
Danced by the streams.
HESPERIDES.
35
Love, what it is.
LOVE is a circle, that doth restless move
In the same sweet eternity of love.
36
HESPERIDES.
1
To Julia.
JULIA, when thy Herrick dies,
Close thou up thy poet's eyes:
And his last breath, let it be
Taken in by none but thee.
HESPERIDES.
37
Upon Cupid.
Love like a gipsy, lately came,
And did me much importune
To see my hand, that by the same
He might foretell my fortune.
He saw my palm; and then said he,
"I tell thee, by this score here,
That thou, within few months, shalt be
The youthful Prince D'Amour here."
I smiled, and bade him once more prove,
And by some cross-line show it,
That I could ne'er be Prince of Love,
Though here the Princely Poet.
38
HESPERIDES.
A Vow to Venus.
HAPPILY I had a sight
Of my dearest dear last night;
Make her this day smile on me,
And I'll roses give to thee.
HESPERIDES.
392
To Dianeme.
DEAR, though to part it be a hell,
Yet, Dianeme, now farewell:
Thy frown last night did bid me go,
But whither only grief does know.
I do beseech thee, ere we part
(If merciful as fair thou art,
Or else desir'st that maids should tell
Thy pity by Love's chronicle), :
O Dianeme, rather kill
•
Me, than to make me languish still!
'Tis cruelty in thee to th' height
Thus, thus to wound, not kill outright :
Yet there's a way found, if thou please,
By sudden death, to give me ease;
And thus devised, do thou but this,
Bequeath to me one parting kiss:
So sup'rabundant joy shall be
The executioner of me.

40
HESPERIDES.
Not to Love.
HE that will not love, must be
My scholar, and learn this of me:
There be in love as many fears,
As the summer's corn has ears;
Sighs, and sobs, and sorrows more
Than the sand that makes the shore :
Freezing cold and fiery heats,
Fainting swoons and deadly sweats;
Now an ague, then a fever,
Both tormenting lovers ever.
Would'st thou know, besides all these,
How hard a woman 'tis to please;
How cross, how sullen, and how soon
She shifts and changes like the moon,
How false, how hollow she's in heart,
And how she is her own least part;
How high she's prized, and worth but small;
Little thou't love, or not at all.
A

HESPERIDES.
41
Upon Julia's Clothes.
WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows.
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes, and see
That brave vibration each way free:
Oh, how that glittering taketh me!
42
HESPERIDES.
A Bacchanalian Verse.
FILL me a mighty bowl
Up to the brim ;
That I may drink
Unto my Jonson's soul.
Crown it again, again ;
And thrice repeat
That happy heat,
To drink to thee, my Ben.
Well I can quaff, I see,
To th' number five,
Or nine, but thrive.
In frenzy ne'er like thee.
HESPERIDES.
43
Upon a Delaying Lady.
COME, come away,
Or let me go;
Must I here stay
Because you're slow,
And will continue so?
Troth, lady, no!
I scorn to be
A slave to state :
And since I'm free,
I will not wait
Henceforth at such a rate
For needy fate.
If you desire
My spark should glow,
The peeping fire
You must blow;
Or I shall quickly grow
To frost or snow.
44
HESPERIDES.
To the Water Nymphs, Drinking at
the Fountain.
REACH with your whiter hands to me
Some crystal of the spring,
And I about the cup shall see
Fresh lilies flourishing.
Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this,
To th' glass your lips incline;
And I shall see by that one kiss
The water turned to wine.
HESPERIDES.
45
To Dianeme.
I COULD but see thee yesterday
Stung by a fretful bee;
And I the javelin sucked away,
And healed the wound in thee.
A thousand thorns, and briars, and stings,
I have in my poor breast;
Yet ne'er can see that salve which brings
My passions any rest.
As love shall help me, I admire
How thou canst sit and smile
To see me bleed, and not desire
To staunch the blood the while.
If thou, composed of gentle mould,
Art so unkind to me,
What dismal stories will be told
Of those that cruel be?
46
HESPERIDES.
To Silvia.
PARDON my trespass, Silvia; I confess
My kiss outwent the bounds of shamefacedness :
None is discreet at all times; no, not Jove
Himself, at one time, can be wise and love.
HESPERIDES.
47
Love Lightly Pleased.
LET fair or foul my mistress be,
Or low, or tall, she pleaseth me:
Or let her walk, or stand, or sit,
The posture hers, I'm pleased with it.
Or let her tongue be still, or stir,
Graceful is ev'rything from her:
Or let her grant, or else deny,
My love will fit each history.
48
HESPERIDES.
Chop-cherry.
THOU gav'st me leave to kiss ;
Thou gav'st me leave to woo;
Thou mad'st me think, by this
And that, thou lov'dst me too.
But I shall ne'er forget
How for to make thee merry,
Thou mad'st me chop, but yet
Another snapt the cherry.
HESPERIDES.
49
To Bacchus. A Canticle.
WHITHER dost thou whurry me,
Bacchus, being full of thee?
This way, that way; that way, this,
Here and there a fresh love is;
That doth like me, this doth please:
Thus a thousand mistresses
I have now: yet I alone
Having all, enjoy not one.
247
50
HESPERIDES.
No Fault in Women.
No fault in women to refuse
The offer which they most would choose:
No fault in women to confess
How tedious they are in their dress:
No fault in women to lay on
The tincture of vermilion,
And there to give the cheek a dye
Of white, where Nature doth deny.
No fault in women to make show
Of largeness, when they're nothing so ;
When, true it is, the outside swells
With inward buckram, little else:
No fault in women though they be
But seldom from suspicion free:
No fault in womankind at all
If they but slip, and never fall.
HESPERIDES.
51
An Hymn to the Muses.
HONOUR to you who sit
Near to the well of wit,
And drink your fill of it!
Glory and worship be
To you, sweet maids, thrice three,
Who still inspire me ;
And teach me how to sing
Unto the lyric string
My measures ravishing!
Then while I sing your praise,
My priesthood crown with bays,
Green to the end of days.
52
HESPERIDES.
Mrs. Eliz. Wheeler, under the Name
of the Lost Shepherdess.
AMONG the myrtles as I walked,
Love and my sighs thus intertalked :
"Tell me," said I, in deep distress,
"Where I may find my shepherdess?"
"Thou fool," said Love, "know'st thou not this,
In everything that's sweet she is?
In yond' carnation go and seek,
There thou shalt find her lip and cheek:
In that enamelled pansy by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye;
In bloom of peach and rose's bud,
There waves the streamer of her blood.“
"'Tis true," said I, and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one,
To make of parts an union;
But on a sudden all were gone :
At which I stopped.
Said Love, "These be
The true resemblances of thee:
For as these flowers, thy joys must die,
And in the turning of an eye;
And all thy hopes of her must wither,
Like those short sweets ere knit together."
HESPERIDES.
53
Maids' Nays are Nothing.
MAIDS' nays are nothing; they are shy
But to desire what they deny.
54
HESPERIDES.
:
;
The Wounded Cupid. Song.
CUPID, as he lay among
Roses, by a bee was stung:
Whereupon in anger flying
To his mother, said, thus crying,
"Help! O help! your boy's a-dying.”
"And why, my pretty lad ?" said she.
Then blubbering, replièd he,
"A winged snake has bitten me,
Which country people call a bee."
At which she smiled, then with her hairs
And kisses, drying up his tears,
"Alas!" said she, “my wag, if this
Such a pernicious torment is,
Come, tell me then how great's the smart
Of those thou woundest with thy dart !"
HESPERIDES.
55
A Nuptial Song; or, Epithalamie on
Sir Clipseby Crew and his Lady.
WHAT'S that we see from far? The spring of day
Bloomed from the east, or fair injewelled May
Blown out of April; or some new
Star filled with glory to our view,
Reaching at heaven,
To add a nobler planet to the seven?
Say, or do we not descry
Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany
To move, or rather the
Emergent Venus from the sea ?
.1
'Tis she 'tis she! or else some more divine
Enlightened substance; mark how from the shrine.
Of holy saints she paces on,
Treading upon vermilion
And amber; spice-
ing the chaſed air with fumes of Paradise.
Then come on, come on, and yield
A savour like unto a blessed field,
When the bedabbled morn
Washes the golden ears of corn.
See where she comes, and smell how all the street
Breathes vineyards and pomegranates: O how sweet!
56
HESPERIDES.
As a fired altar, is each stone,
Perspiring pounded cinnamon.
The phoenix nest,
Built up of odours, burneth in her breast.
Who therein would not consume
His soul to ash-heaps in that rich perfume?
Bestroking fate the while
He burns to embers on the pile.
Hymen, O Hymen! tread the sacred ground;
Show thy white feet, and head with marjoram crowned:
Mount up thy flames, and let thy torch
Display the bridegroom in the porch,
In his desires
More tow'ring, more disparkling than thy fires :
Show her how his eyes do turn
And roll about, and in their motions burn
Their balls to cinders: haste,
Or else to ashes he will waste.
Glide by the banks of virgins then, and pass
The showers of roses, lucky four-leaved grass :
The while the cloud of younglings sing,
And drown ye with a flowery spring:
While some repeat
Your praise, and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat :
While that others do divine,
"Blest is the bride, on whom the sun doth shine;"
And thousands gladly wish
You multiply, as doth a fish.
HESPERIDES.
57
And beauteous bride, we do confess you're wise,
In dealing forth these bashful jealousies;
In Love's name do so, and a price
Set on yourself, by being nice :
But yet take heed;
What now you seem, be not the same indeed,
And turn apostate; Love will
Part of the way be met, or sit stone-still.
On then, and though you slow-
ly go; yet, howsoever, go.
And now you're entered; see the coddled cook,
Runs from his torrid zone, to pry and look,
And bless his dainty mistress: see,
The aged point out,
"This is she
Who now must sway
The house (love shield her) w; h her Yea and Nay
And the smirk butler thks it
Sin, in's nap'ry, not to express his wit;
Each striving to devise
Some gin, wherewith to catch your eyes.
To bed, to bed, kind Turtles, now, and write
This the short'st day, and this the longest night;
But yet too short for you: 'tis we
Who count this night as long as three,
Lying alone,
Telling the clock strike ten, eleven, twelve, one.
Quickly, quickly, then prepare ;
58
HESPERIDES.
And let the young men and the brides-maids share
Your garters; and their joints
Encircle with the bridegroom's points.
By the bride's eyes, and by the teeming life
Of her green hopes, we charge ye, that no strife,
Farther than gentleness tends, gets place
Among ye, striving for her lace:
Oh, do not fall
Foul in these noble pastimes, lest ye call
Discord in, and so divide
The youthful bridegroom and the fragrant bride;
Which love forefend; but spoken
Be't to your praise, no peace was broken.
Strip her of spring-time, tender, whimpering maids,
Now autumn 's come when all those flow'ry aids
Of her delays must end; dispose
That lady-smock, that pansy, and that rose
Neatly apart;
But for prick-madam, and for gentle-heart,
And soft maiden's-blush, the bride
Makes holy these, all others lay aside :
Then strip her, or unto her
Let him come who dares undo her.
And to enchant ye more, see everywhere
About the roof a siren in a sphere,
As we think, singing to the din
Of many a warbling cherubin:
O mark ye how
HESPERIDES.
59
The soul of Nature melts in numbers: now
See, a thousand Cupids fly,
To light their tapers at the bride's bright eye.
To bed, or her they'll tire,
Were she an element of fire.
And to your more bewitching, see, the proud
Plump bed bear up, and swelling like a cloud.
Tempting the two too modest; can
Ye see it brusle like a swan,
And you be cold
To meet it, when it woos and seems to fold
The arms to hug it? Throw, throw
Yourselves into the mighty over-flow
Of that white pride, and drown
The night, with you, in floods of down.
The bed is ready, and the maze of love
Looks for the treaders; everywhere is wove
Wit and new mystery; read, and
Put in practice, to understand
And know each wile,
Each hieroglyphic of a kiss or smile;
And do it to the full; reach
High in your own concept, and some way teach
Nature and Art one more
Play than they ever knew before.
If needs we must for ceremony's sake
Bless a sack-possit; luck go with it; take
60
HESPERIDES.
The night-charm quickly; you have spells
And magics for to end, and hells
To pass, but such,
And of such torture, as no one would grutch
To live therein for ever. Fry
And consume, and grow again to die
And live, and in that case,
Love the confusion of the place.
But since it must be done, dispatch and sew
Up in a sheet your bride, and what if so
It be with rock, or walls of brass,
Ye tow'r her up as Danae was;
Think you that this,
Or hell itself a powerful bulwark is?
I tell ye no; but like a
Bold bolt of thunder he will make his way,
And rend the cloud and throw
The sheet about, like flakes of snow.
All now is hushed in silence; midwife-moon,
With all her owl-eyed issue, begs a boon
Which you must grant; that's entrance; with
Which extract all we can call pith
And quintessence
Of planetary bodies; so commence
All fair constellations
Looking upon ye, that those nations
Springing from two such fires,
May blaze the virtue of their sires.
[1625.]
HESPERIDES.
61
To Dianeme.
SWEET, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies:
Nor be you proud that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair,
Which wantons with the love-sick air :
Whenas that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone,
When all your world of beauty's gone.
62
HESPERIDES.
Not Every Day Fit for Verse.
'Tis not every day that I
Fitted am to prophesy :
No, but when the spirit fills
The fantastic pannicles,
Full of fire, then I write
As the Godhead doth indite.
Thus enraged, my lines are hurled.
Like the Sybil's, through the world.
Look how next the holy fire
Either slakes, or doth retire;
So the fancy cools, till when
That brave spirit comes again.

HESPERIDES.
63
Upon Electra.
WHEN out of bed my love doth spring,
'Tis but as day a-kindling ;
But when she's up and fully dressed,
'Tis then broad day throughout the East,
64
HESPERIDES.
The Captive Bee; or, The Little
Filcher.
As Julia once a-slumb'ring lay,
It chanced a bee did fly that way,
After a dew, or dew-like shower,
To tipple freely in a flower;
For some rich flower he took the lip
Of Julia, and began to sip;
But when he felt he sucked from thence
Honey, and in the quintessence,
He drank so much he scarce could stir,
So Julia took the pilferer;
And thus surprised, as filchers use,
He thus began himself t' excuse,
Sweet Lady-flower, I never brought
Hither the least one thieving thought :
But taking those rare lips of yours
For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flowers,
I thought I might there take a taste,
Where so much sirup ran at waste.
Besides, know this, I never sting
The flower that gives me nourishing :
But with a kiss, or thanks, do pay
For honey that I bear away."
This said, he laid his little scrip
Of honey 'fore her ladyship,
HESPERIDES.
65
4
And told her, as some tears did fall,
That that he took, and that was all.
At which she smiled, and bade him go
And take his bag; but thus much know,
When next he came a pilfering so,
He should from her full lips derive
Honey enough to fill his hive.
248
66
HESPERIDES.
To Live Merrily, and to Trust to
Good Verses.
Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
For with the flow'ry earth,
The golden pomp is come.
The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.
Now reigns the Rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow,
And my retorted hairs.
Homer, this health to thee,
In sack of such a kind,
That it would make thee see,
Though thou wert ne'er so blind.
Next, Virgil I'll call forth,
To pledge this second health
In wine whose each cup's worth
An Indian commonwealth.
HESPERIDES.
67
A goblet next I'll drink
To Ovid; and suppose
Made he the pledge, he'd think
The world had all one nose.
Then this immensive cup
Of aromatic wine,
Catullus, I quaff up
To that terse muse of thine,
Wild I am now with heat;
O Bacchus, cool thy rays I
Or frantic I shall eat
Thy thyrse, and bite the bays.
Round, round, the roof does run;
And being ravished thus,
Come, I will drink a tun
To my Propertius.
Now to Tibullus next,
This flood I drink to thee:
But stay, I see a text,
That this presents to me.
Behold! Tibullus lies
Here burnt, whose small return
Of ashes scarce suffice
To fill a little urn.
68
HESPERIDES.
Trust to good verses then ;
They only will aspire,
When pyramids, as men,
Are lost i' th' funeral fire,
And when all bodies meet
In Lethe, to be drowned;
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crowned.
HESPERIDES.
69
Upon Mistress Susanna Southwell
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.
70
HESPERIDES.
Julia's Petticoat.
THY azure robe I did behold
As airy as the leaves of gold,
Which erring here, and wand'ring there,
Pleased with transgression ev'rywhere;
Sometimes 'twould pant, and sigh, and heave,
As if to stir it scarce had leave;
But having got it, thereupon
'Twould make a brave expansion :
And pounced with stars, it showed to me
Like a celestial canopy.
Sometimes 'twould blaze, and then abate,
Like to a flame grown moderate :
Sometimes away 'twould wildly fling,
Then to thy thighs so closely cling
That some conceit did melt me down,
As lovers fall into a swoon,
And all confused, I there did lie
Drowned in delights, but could not die.
That leading cloud I followed still,
Hoping t' have seen of it my fill;
But ah! I could not; should it move
To life eternal, I could love.
HESPERIDES.
71
To Music. A Song.
MUSIC, thou queen of heaven, care-charming spell,
That strik'st a stillness into hell:
Thou that tam'st tigers, and fierce storms that rise,
With thy soul-melting lullabies:
Fall down, down, down, froin those thy chiming spheres,
To charm our souls, as thou enchant'st our ears.
72
HESPERIDES.
1
To Anthea.
IF, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be
To live some few sad hours after thee,
Thy sacred corpse 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.

HESPERIDES.
73
A Christmas Carol, sung to the King in
the Presence at Whitehall.
Chor. WHAT sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol, for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!
Heart, ear, and eye, and every thing,
Awake, the while the active finger
Runs division with the singer.
From the Flourish they came to the Song.
I. Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honour to this day,
That sees December turned to May.
2. If we may ask the reason, say;
The why and wherefore all things here
Seem like the spring-time of the year?
3. Why does the chilling winter's morn
Smile like a field beset with corn;
Or smell like to a mead new-shorn,
Thus on the sudden? 4. Come and see
The cause why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quick'ning birth
Gives life and lustre, public mirth,
To heaven and the under-earth.
74
HESPERIDES.
Chor. We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who, with His sunshine and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
1. The Darling of the world is come,
And fit it is we find a room
To welcome Him. 2. The nobler part
Of all the house here is the heart,-
Chor. Which we will give Him; and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath
To do Him honour, who's our King,
And Lord of all this revelling.
The musical part was composed by
Mr. Henry Lawes.
1
HESPERIDES.
75
The New-Year's Gift, or Circum-
cision's Song.
Sung to the King in the Presence at Whitehali.
1. PREPARE for songs; He's come, He's come!
And be it sin here to be dumb,
And not with lutes to fill the room.
2. Cast holy water all about,
And have a care no fire goes out,
But cense the porch and place throughout.
3. The altars all on fire be;
The storax fries; and ye may see
How heart and hand do all agree
To make things sweet. Chor. Yet all less sweet
than He.
4. Bring Him along, most pious priest,
And tell us then, whenas thou see'st
His gently-gliding, dove-like eyes,
And hear'st His whimp'ring and His cries,
How canst thou this Babe circumcise?
5. Ye must not be more pitiful than wise;
For, now unless ye see Him bleed,
Which makes the bapti'm, 'tis decreed
The birth is fruitless. Chor. Then the work God speed.
76
HESPERIDES.
1. Touch gently, gently touch; and here
Spring tulips up through all the year;
And from His sacred blood, here shed,
May roses grow, to crown His own dear head.
Chor. Back, back again; each thing is done
With zeal alike, as 'twas begun ;
Now, singing, homeward let us carry
The Babe unto His mother Mary ;
And when we have the Child commended
To her warm bosom, then our rites are ended.
Composed by Mr. Henry Lawes.
HESPERIDES.
77
Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself.
TELL, if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come
This camphire, storax, spikenard, galbanum ;
These musks, these ambers, and those other smells
Sweet as the vestry of the oracles.
I'll tell thee; while my Julia did unlace
Her silken bodice but a breathing space,
The passive air such odour then assumed,
As when to Jove great Juno goes perfumed,
Whose pure immortal body doth transmit
A scent that fills both heaven and earth with it.

78
HESPERIDES.
To Electra.
I DARE not ask a kiss ;
I dare not beg a smile;
Lest having that or this,
I might grow proud the while.
No, no, the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee.
HESPERIDES.
79
To Silvia.
I AM holy while I stand
Circum-crossed by thy pure hand :
But when that is gone, again
I, as others, am profane.
80
HESPERIDES.
To Music, to becalm his Fever.
CHARM me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
That being ravished, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed,
Thou power that canst sever
From me this ill,
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.
Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire;
Then make me weep
My pains asleep,
And give me such reposes,
That I, poor I,
May think, thereby,
I live and die
'Mongst roses.
HESPERIDES.
81
}
Fall on me like a silent dew.
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A bapti'm o'er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains,
With thy soft strains,
That having ease me given,
With full delight
I leave this light,
And take my flight
For Heaven.
249
82
HESPERIDES.
The Dirge of Jephthah's Daughter:
Sung by the Virgins.
O THOU, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise !
O virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train! We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.
Thus, thus, and thus we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffodil
And other flowers lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.
Thou wonder of all maids, li'st here,
Of daughters all the dearest dear ;
The eye of virgins; nay, the queen
Of this smooth green,
And all sweet meads from whence we get
The primrose and the violet.
Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,
By thy sad loss, our liberty:
His was the bond and cov'nant, yet
Thou paid'st the debt,
Lamented Maid! He won the day,
But for the conquest thou didst pay.
HESPERIDES.
83
Thy father brought with him along
The olive branch and victor's song:
He slew the Ammonites, we know,
But to thy woe;
And in the purchase of our peace,
The cure was worse than the disease.
For which obedient zeal of thine
We offer here, before thy shrine,
Our sighs for storax, tears for wine;
And to make fine
And fresh thy hearse-cloth, we will here
Four times bestrew thee ev'ry year.
Receive, for this thy praise, our tears:
Receive this offering of our hairs:
Receive these crystal vials, filled
With tears distilled
From teeming eyes; to these we bring,
Each maid. her silver filleting,
To gild thy tomb; besides, these cauls,
These laces, ribbons, and these falls,
These veils wherewith we use to hide
The bashful bride
When we conduct her to her groom:
All, all we lay upon thy tomb.
No more, no more, since thou art dead,
Shall we e'er bring coy brides to bed;
84
HESPERIDES.
No more, at yearly festivals,
We cowslip balls
Or chains of columbines shall make
For this or that occasion's sake.
No, no; our maiden pleasures be
Wrapt in the winding-sheet with thee:
'Tis we are dead, though not 'i th' grave;
Or if we have
One seed of life left, 'tis to keep
A Lent for thee, to fast and weep.
Sleep in thy peace, thy bed of spice,
And make this place all paradise :
May sweets grow here, and smoke from henc
Fat frankincense :
Let balm and cassia send their scent
From out thy maiden monument.
May no wolf howl, or screech-owl stir
A wing about thy sepulchre !
No boisterous winds or storms come hither,
To starve or wither
Thy soft sweet earth, but like a spring
Love keep it ever flourishing.
May all shy maids, at wonted hours,
Come forth to strew thy tomb with flowers :
May virgins, when they come to mourn,
Male-incense burn
Upon thine altar then return
And leave thee sleeping in thy urn.
HESPERIDES.
85
Upon Himself.
THOU shalt not all die; for while Love's fire shines
Upon his altar, men shall read thy lines;
And learn'd musicians shall, to honour Herrick's
Fame. and his name, both set, and sing his lyrics.
86
HESPERIDES.
Matins; or, Morning Prayer.
WHEN with the virgin morning thou dost rise,
Crossing thyself, come thus to sacrifice :
First wash thy heart in innocence, then bring
Pure hands, pure habits, pure, pure everything.
Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence
Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense.
Thy golden censers, filled with odours sweet,
Shall make thy actions with their ends to meet.
HESPERIDES.
87
To Julia.
How rich and pleasing thou, my Julia, art
In each thy dainty and peculiar part !
First, for thy Queenship, on thy head is set
Of flowers a sweet commingled coronet :
About thy neck a carcanet is bound,
Made of the ruby, pearl, and diamond :
A golden ring, that shines upon thy thumb;
About thy wrist the rich Dardanium :
Between thy breasts, than down of swans more white,
There plays the sapphire with the chrysolite.
No part besides must of thyself be known,
But by the topaz, opal, chalcedon.
88
HESPERIDES.
The Kiss.
A Dialogue.
I AMONG thy fancies, tell me this,
What is the thing we call a kiss?
2. I shall resolve ye what it is.
It is a creature born and bred
Between the lips, all cherry-red,
By love and warm desires fed ;
Chor. And makes more soft the bridal bed.
It is an active flame, that flies
First to the babies of the eyes,
And charms them there with lullabies ;
Chor. And stills the bride too, when she cries.
Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear,
It frisks and flies, now here, now there,
'Tis now far off, and then 'tis near;
Chor. And here, and there, and everywhere.
1. Has it a speaking virtue? 2. Yes.
1. How speaks it, say? 2. Do you but this,
Part your joined lips, then speaks your kiss :
Chor. And this love's sweetest language is.
I Has it a body? 2. Aye, and wings
With thousand rare encolourings :
And as it flies it gently sings,
Chor. Love honey yields, but never stings.'
HESPERIDES.
89
Julia's Churching, or Purification.
PUT on thy holy filletings, and so
To th' temple with the sober midwife go :
Attended thus, in a most solemn wise,
By those who serve the childbed mysteries,
Burn first thine incense; next, whenas thou see'st
The candid stole thrown o'er the pious priest,
With reverent curtsies come, and to him bring
Thy free, and not decurted, offering.
All rites well ended, with fair auspice come,
As to the breaking of a bridecake, home ·
Where ceremonious Hymen shall for thee
Provide a second epithalamy.
She who keeps chastely to her husband's side
Is not for one but every night his bride :
And stealing still with love, and fear to bed,
Brings him not one, but many a maidenhead.
90
HESPERIDES.
The Star Song: a Carol to the King
Sung at Whitehall.
The flourish of music; then followed the song.
I. TELL us, thou clear and heavenly tongue.
Where is the Babe but lately sprung?
Lies He the lily-banks among?
2. Or say, if this new Birth of ours
Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers,
Spangled with dew-light; thou canst clear
All doubts, and manifest the where.
3. Declare to us, bright star, if we shall seek
Him in the morning's blushing cheek,
Or search the bed of spices through
To find Him out?
Star. No, this ye need not do ;
But only come and see Him rest,
A princely Babe, in 's Mother's breast.
Chor. He's seen! He's seen! Why then a round!
Let's kiss the sweet and holy ground;
And all rejoice that we have found
A King before conception crowned.
HESPERIDES.
91
4. Come then, come then, and let us bring
Unto our pretty Twelfth-tide King
Each one his several offering ;
Chor. And when night comes we'll give Him
wassailing;
And that His treble honours may be seen,
We'll choose Him King, and make his Mother Queen.
92
HESPERIDES.
Delight in Disorder.
A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.
HESPERIDES.
93
Corinna's going a-Maying.
GET up, get up for shame, the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.
See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air:
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east,
Above an hour since, yet you not dressed,
Nay not so much as out of bed;
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in,
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.
Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair :
Fear not, the leaves will strew
Gems in abundance upon you:
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

94
HESPERIDES.
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night,
And Titan on the eastern hill
Retires himself, or else stands still
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying:
Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying.
Come, my Corinna, come; and coming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park
Made
Made green, and trimmed with trees: see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,
An ark, a tabernacle is,
up of white thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad, and let's obey
The proclamation made for May:
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.
'There's not a budding boy or girl, this day,
But is got up and gone to bring in May.
A deal of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have despatched their cakes and cream
Before that we have left to dream:
And some have wept, and wooed and plighted troth.
And chose their priest, cre we can cast off sloth:
HESPERIDES.
95
Many a green gown has been given ;
Many a kiss, both odd and even :
Many a glance, too, has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament :
Many a jest told of the key's betraying
This night, and locks picked, yet we're not a-Maying.
Come, let us go, while we are in our prime,
And take the harmless folly of the time.
We shall grow old apace and die
Before we know our liberty.
Our life is short, and our days run
As fast away as does the sun:
And as a vapour, or a drop of rain
Once lost, can ne'er be found again :
So when or you or I are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade,
All love, all liking, all delight,
Lies drowned with us in endless night.
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying.
· 90
HESPERIDES.
(
The Transfiguration.
IMMORTAL clothing I put on
So soon as, Julia, I am gone
To mine eternal mansion.
Thou, thou art here, to human sight
Clothed all with incorrupted light,
But yet how more admir'dly bright
Wilt thou appear, when thou art set
In thy refulgent thronëlet,
That shin'st thus in thy counterfeit
HESPERIDES.
97
Upon his Kinswoman, Mistress
Bridget Herrick.
SWEET Bridget blushed. 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.
250
98
HESPERIDES.
The Bracelet to Julia.
WHY I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this my silken twist;
For what other reason is't,
But to show thee how in part
Thou my pretty captive art?
But thy bond-slave is my heart.
'Tis but silk that bindeth thee,
Knap the thread and thou art free:
But 'tis otherwise with me;
I am bound, and fast bound so,
That from thee I cannot go ;
If I could, I would not so.
HESPERIDES.
99
To his Mistress objecting to Him
neither Toying nor 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 depths 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.
100
HESPERIDES.
His Covenant or Protestation to Julia
WHY dost thou wound and break my heart,
As if we should for ever part?
Hast thou not heard an oath from me,
After a day or two, or three,
I would come back and live with thee?
Take, if thou dost distrust that vow,
This second protestation now :
Upon thy check that spangled tear
Which sits as dew of roses there,
That tear shall scarce be dried before
I'll kiss the threshold of thy door :
Then weep not, sweet, but thus much know,
I'm half returned before I go.
HESPERIDES.
ΙΟΙ
L
His Farewell to Sack.
FAREWELL, thou thing time past so known, so dear
To me, as blood to life and spirit; near,
Nay, thou more near than kindred, friend, man, wife,
Male to the female, soul to body, life
To quick action, or the warm soft side
Of the resigning, yet resisting bride,
The kiss of virgins, first fruits of the bed,
Soft speech, smooth touch, the lips, the maiden-head:
These, and a thousand sweets, could never be
So near or dear as thou wast once to me.
O, thou the drink of Gods and Angels! wine,
That scatter'st spirit and lust; whose purest shine,
More radiant than the summer's sunbeams shows,
Each way illustrious, brave; and like to those
Comets we see by night, whose shagged portents
Foretell the coming of some dire events;
Or some full flame, which with a pride aspires,
Throwing about his wild and active fires.
'Tis thou, 'bove nectar, O divinest soul !
Eternal in thyself, that canst control
That which subverts whole Nature, grief and care,
Vexation of the mind, and damned despair.
'Tis thou alone, who, with thy mystic fan,
Work'st more than wisdom, art, or Nature can,
To rouse the sacred madness, and awake
The frost-bound blood and spirits, and to make
102
HESPERIDES.
Them frantic with thy raptures, flashing through
The soul like lightning, and as active too.
'Tis not Apollo can, or those thrice three
Castalian sisters sing, if wanting thee.
Horace, Anacreon, both had lost their fame,
Hadst thou not filled them with thy fire and flame,
Phoebean splendour! and thou, Thespian spring,
Of which sweet swans must drink before they sing
Their true-paced numbers and their holy lays,
Which makes them worthy cedar and the bays.
But why? why longer do I gaze upon
Thee with the eye of admiration?
Since I must leave thee, and enforced must say,
To all thy witching beauties, "Go. Away!
But if thy whimp'ring looks do ask me why?
Then know that Nature bids thee go, not I.
'Tis her erroneous self has made a brain
Uncapable of such a sovereign,
As is thy powerful self. Prithee not smile,
Or smile more inly, lest thy looks beguile
My vows denounced in zeal, which thus much show
thee
That I have sworn but by thy looks to know thee.
Let others drink thee freely, and desire
Thee and their lips espoused, while I admire
And love thee, but not taste thee.
Let my muse
Fail of thy former helps, and only use
Her inadult'rate strength; what's done by me
Hereafter shall smell of the lamp, not thee.
[1629.]

HESPERIDES.
103
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.
*
HESPERIDES.
104
The Departure of the Good Demon.
WHAT can I do in poetry,
Now the good spirit's gone from me?
Why nothing now. but lonely sit,
And over-read what I have writ.
HESPERIDES.
105
The Bleeding Hand: or, the Sprig of
Eglantine Given to a Maid.
FROM this bleeding hand of mine,
Take this sprig of Eglantine,
Which, though sweet unto your smell,
Yet the fretful briar will tell,
He who plucks the sweets shall prove
Many thorns to be in love.
106
HESPERIDES.
To Primroses filled with Morning
Dew.
WHY do ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears
Speak grief in you
Who were but born
Just as the modest morn
Teemed her refreshing dew?
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,
Nor felt th' unkind
Breath of a blasting wind,
Nor are ye worn with years,
Or warped, as we,
Who think it strange to see
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
To speak by tears before ye have a tongue.
Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep.
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet,

HESPERIDES.
107
Or brought a kiss
From that sweet heart to this?
No, no, this sorrow shown
By your tears shed
Would have this lecture read,
That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.
108
HESPERIDES.
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.
HESPERIDES.
109
Upon a Lady that Died in Childbed,
and left a Daughter behind her.
As gillyflowers do but stay
To blow, and seed, and so away;
So you, sweet lady, sweet as May,
The garden's glory, lived a while,
To lend the world your scent and smile:
But when your own fair print was set
Once in a virgin flosculet,
Sweet as yourself, and newly blown,
To give that life, resigned your own ;
But so, as still the mother's power
Lives in the pretty lady-flower.
>
IIO
HESPERIDES.
The Widows' Tears; or, Dirge of
Dorcas.
COME, pity us, all ye who see
Our harps hung on the willow-tree:
Come pity us, ye passers-by,
Who see or hear poor widows cry:
Come pity us, and bring your ears
And eyes to pity widows' tears.
Chor. And when you are come hither,
Then we will keep
A fast, and weep
Our eyes out all together.
For Tabitha; who dead lies here,
Clean washed, and laid out for the bier.
O modest matrons, weep and wail !
For the corn and wine must fail,
The basket and the bin of bread,
Wherewith so many souls were fed,
Chor. Stand empty here for ever;
And ah! the poor
At thy worn door
Shall be relievèd never.
Woe worth the time, woe worth the day,
That reaved us of thee, Tabitha,
For we have lost with thee the meal,
The bits, the morsels, and the deal
HESPERIDES.
III
Of gentle paste and yielding dough,
That thou on widows did bestow.
Chor. All's gone, and death hath taken
Away from us
Our maundy; thus
Thy widows stand forsaken.
Ah, Dorcas, Dorcas! now adieu
We bid the cruse and pannier too;
Aye, and the flesh, for and the fish,
Doled to us in that lordly dish.
We take our leaves now of the loom
From whence the housewives' cloth did come :
Chor. The web affords now nothing;
Thou being dead,
The worsted thread
Is cut that made us clothing.
Farewell the flax and reaming wool,
With which thy house was plentiful.
Farewell the coats, the garments, and
The sheets, the rugs, made by thy hand.
Farewell thy fire and thy light,
That ne'er went out by day or night.
Chor. No, or thy zeal so speedy,
That found a way,
By peep of day,
To feed and clothe the needy.
112
HESPERIDES.
But ah, alas! the almond bough,
And olive branch is withered now;
The wine-press now is ta'en from us,
The saffron and the calamus;
The spice and spikenard hence is gone,
The storax and the cinnamon ;
Chor. The carol of our gladness
Has taken wing,
And our late spring
Of mirth is turned to sadness.
How wise wast thou in all thy ways!
How worthy of respect and praise !
How matron-like didst thou go dressed!
How soberly above the rest
Of those that prank it with their plumes,
And jet it with their choice perfumes.
Chor. Thy vestures were not flowing,
Nor did the street
Accuse thy feet
Of mincing in their going.
And though thou here li'st dead, we see
A deal of beauty yet in thee.
How sweetly shows thy smiling face,
Thy lips with all diffusèd grace !
Thy hands, though cold, yet spotless, white,
And comely as the chrysolite.

HESPERIDES.
113
Chor. Thy belly like a hill is,
Or as a neat
Clean heap of wheat,
All set about with lilies.
Sleep with thy beauties here, while we
Will show these garments made by thee;
These were the coats, in these are read
The monuments of Dorcas dead :
These were thy acts, and thou shalt have
These hung as honours o'er thy grave,
Chor. And after us, distressèd,
Should fame be dumb,
Thy very tomb
Would cry out, "Thou art blessèd."
251
114
HESPERIDES.
An Ode of the Birth of Our Saviour.
IN numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, O JESU !
Thou pretty Baby, born here
With sup'rabundant scorn here,
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth a base
Out-stable for thy court here.
Instead of neat enclosures
Of interwoven osiers,
Instead of fragrant posies
Of daffodils and roses,
Thy cradle, Kingly Stranger,
As Gospel tells,
Was nothing else
But here a homely manger.
But we with silks, not crewels,
With sundry precious jewels,
And lily-work, will dress thee;
And as we dispossess thee
Of clouts, we'll make a chamber,
Sweet Babe, for thee
Of ivory,
And plastered round with amber.
HESPERIdes.
115
The Jews they did disdain thee,
But we will entertain thee
With glories to await here
Upon thy princely state here,
And more for love than pity,
From year to year
We'll make thee here
A freeborn of our city.
116
HESPERIDES.
His Sailing from Julia.
WHEN that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone
Unto that wat❜ry desolation,
Devoutly to thy closet gods then pray,
That my winged 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 pourèd 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 engend'ring kiss ;
Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell.
HESPERIDES.
117
The Primrose.
Ask me why I send you here
This sweet Infanta of the year?
Ask me why I send to you
This Primrose, thus bepearled with dew?
I will whisper to your ears,
The sweets of love are mixed with tears.
Ask me why this flower does show
So yellow-green, and sickly too?
Ask me why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break?
I will answer, these discover
What fainting hopes are in a lover.
118
HESPERIDES.
Upon a Child that Died.
HERE she lies, a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood;
Who, as soon fell fast asleep,
As her little eyes did peep.
Give her strewings; but not stir
The earth, that lightly covers her,
HESPERIDES.
119
His Tears to Thamesis.
I SEND, I send here my supremest kiss,
To thee, my silver-footed Thamesis.
No more shall I reiterate thy strand,
Whereon so many stately structures stand,
Nor in the summer's sweeter evenings go
To bathe in thee, as thousand others do:
No more shall I along thy crystal glide
In barge, with boughs and rushes beautified,
With soft, smooth virgins for our chaste disport,
To Richmond, Kingston, and to Hampton Court :
Never again shall I with finny oar
Put from or draw unto the faithful shore;
And landing here, or safely landing there,
Make way to my beloved Westminster,
Or to the golden Cheapside, where the earth
Of Julia Herrick gave to me my birth.
May all clean nymphs and curious water dames
With swan-like state, float up and down thy streams:
No drought upon thy wanton waters fall,
To make them lean and languishing at all :
No ruffling winds come hither to disease
Thy pure and silver-wristed Naiades.
Keep up your state, ye streams, and as ye spring,
Never make sick your banks by surfeiting.
Grow young with tides, and though I see ye never,
Receive this vow; so fare ye well for ever.
120
HESPERIDES.
The Wake.
COME, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do.
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
Are the junkets still at wakes;
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the business is the sport.
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian, too, in pageantry;
And a minic to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.
Near the dying of the day
There will be a cudgel-play,
Where a coxcomb will be broke,
Ere a good word can be spoke :
But the anger ends all here,
Drenched in ale or drowned in beer
Happy rustics, best content
With the cheapest merriment,
And possess no other fear
Than to want the wake next year.
HESPERIDES.
121
Parcel-gilt Poetry.
LET'S strive to be the best; the gods, we know it,
Pillars and men, hate an indifferent poet.
122
HESPERIDES.
To Daffodils.
FAIR Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon ;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as yoù,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
HESPERIDES.
123
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 swelled and crowned,
A round
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.
124
HESPERIDES.
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.
HESPERIDES.
125
Upon a Maid.
GONE she is a long, long way,
But she has decreed a day
Back to come, and make no stay:
So we keep till her return
Here, her ashes, or her urn.
126
HESPERIDES.
To his Saviour, a Child; a Present,
by a Child.
Go, pretty child, and bear this flower
Unto thy little Saviour;
And tell him, by that bud now blown,
He is the Rose of Sharon known.
When thou hast said so, stick it there
Upon his bib or stomacher;
And tell him, for good handsel too,
That thou hast brought a whistle new,
Made of a clean strait oaten reed,
To charm his cries at time of need.
Tell him, for coral thou hast none,
But if thou hadst, he should have one;
But poor thou art, and known to be
Even as moneyless as he.
Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss
From those mellifluous lips of his;
Then never take a second on,
To spoil the first impression.
HESPERIDES.
127
Soft Music.
THE mellow touch of music most doth wound
The soul, when it doth rather sigh than sound.
128
HESPERIDES.
A Grace for a Child.
HERE a little child I stand,
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all. Amen.
HESPERIDES.
129
The Apron of Flowers.
To gather flowers Sappho went,
And homeward she did bring
Within her lawny continent,
The treasure of the spring.
She smiling blushed, and blushing smiled,
And sweetly blushing thus,
She looked as she'd been got with child
By young Favonius.
Her apron gave, as she did pass,
An odour more divine,
More pleasing, too, than ever was
The lap of Proserpine.
252
130
HESPRIDZA.
The Tithe. To the Bride.
If nine times you your bridegroom kiss,
The tenth you know the parson's is.
Pay then your tithe; and doing thus,
Prove in your bride-bed numerous.
If children you have ten, Sir John
Won't for his tenth part ask you one.
HESPERIDES
POEMS BY ROBERT HERRICK.
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.
244
2
HESPERIDES.
To his Muse.
WHITHER, mad maiden, wilt thou roam?
Far safer 'twere to stay at home,
Where thou may'st sit, and piping please
The poor and private cottages,
Since cots and hamlets best agree
With this thy meaner minstrelsy.
There with the reed thou may'st 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 may'st hear thine own lines read,
By no one tongue there censurèd.
That man's unwise will search for ill,
And may prevent it sitting still.

HESPERIDES.
3
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 is raised, and when the sound
Of sacred orgies flies, "a round, a round;
When the rose reigns, and locks with ointments shine,
Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine.
>>
4
HESPERIDES.
On his Book.
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.
HESPERIDES.
5
มา
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.
6
HESPERIDES.
The Bag of the Bee.
ABOUT the sweet bag of a bee,
Two Cupids fell at odds;
And whose the pretty prize should be,
They vowed to ask the gods.
Which Venus hearing, thither came,
And for their boldness stripped them,
And taking thence from each his flame,
With rods of myrtle whipped them.
Which done, to still their wanton cries,
When quiet grown she'd seen them,
She kissed, and wiped their dove-like eyes,
And gave the bag between them.
HESPERIDES.
ང་
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 allied in blood,
Or sworn to that sweet sisterhood:
For health on Julia's cheek hath shed
Claret and cream comminglèd;
And those, her lips, do now appear
As beams of coral, but more clear.
8
HESPERIDES.
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 buckettings.
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.
HESPERIDES.
9
To Violets.
WELCOME, maids of honour,
You do bring
In the spring,
And wait upon her.
She has virgins many,
Fresh and fair;
Yet you are
More sweet than any.
You're the maiden posies.
And so graced
To be placed
'Fore damask roses.
Yet though thus respected,
By-and-by
Ye do lie,
Poor girls, neglected.
{
IO
HESPERIDES.
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.
HESPERIDES.
II
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.
12
HESPERIDES.
The Shower of Blossoms.
LOVE in a shower of blossoms came
Down, and half-drowned me with the same;
The blooms that fell were white and red,
But with such sweets commingled,
As whether, this I cannot tell,
My sight was pleased more, or my smell:
But true it was, as I rolled there,
Without a thought of hurt or fear,
Love turned himself into a bee
And with his javelin wounded me,
From which mishap this use I make,
Where most sweets are, there lies a snake;
Kisses and favours are sweet things,
But those have thorns and these have stings.
HESPERIDES.
13
The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarry
of Pearls.
SOME asked me where the rubies grew
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
Some asked how pearls did grow, and where
Then spoke I to my girl
To part her lips and show me there
The quarrelets of pearl.
14
HESPERIDES.
How Lilies came White.
WHITE though ye be, yet, lilies, know
From the first ye were not so:
But I'll tell ye
What befell ye;
Cupid and his mother lay
In a cloud; while both did play,
He with his pretty finger pressed
The ruby niplet of her breast;
Out of the which the cream of light,
Like to a dew,
Fell down on you,
And made ye white.
HESPERIDES.
15
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 tiffany, or cobweb lawn ;
Then in that parley all those powers
Voted the Rose, the queen of flowers;
But so as that herself should be
The maid of honour unto thee.
16
HESPERIDES.
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.
HESPERIDES.
131
The Country Life, to the Honoured Mr.
Endymion Porter, Groom of the Bed-
chamber to His Majesty.
SWEET country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But, serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorchèd clove;
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No, thy ambition's masterpiece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year :
But walk'st about thine own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds,
For well thou know'st, 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock, the ploughman's horn,
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which, though well soiled, yet thou dost know

J32
HESPERIDES.
That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands.
There at the plough thou find'st thy team
With a hind whistling there to them,
And cheer'st them up by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamelled meads
Thou go'st; and as thy foot there treads,
Thou seest a present Godlike power
Imprinted in each herb and flower,
And smell'st the breath of great-eyed kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat
Unto the dewlaps up in meat;
And as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox draw near,
To make a pleasing pastime there.
These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox,
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass as backs with wool,
And leav'st them, as they feed and fill,
A shepherd piping on a hill.
For sports, for pageantry, and plays,
Thou hast thy eves and holidays,
On which the young men and maids meet
To exercise their dancing feet,
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crowned.
Thy wakes, thy quintals, here thou hast,

HESPERIDES.
133
Thy Maypoles too with garlands graced ;
Thy morris-dance, thy Whitsun-ale,
Thy shearing-feast, which never fail ;
Thy harvest home, thy wassail bowl,
That's tossed up after fox i' th' hole;
Thy mummeries, thy Twelfthtide kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings;
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy times to go
And trace the hare i' th' treacherous snow:
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel net :
Thou hast thy cockrood and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made;
Thy lime-twigs, snares, and pitfalls then,
To catch the pilf'ring birds, not men.
O happy life! if that their good
The husbandmen but understood,
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these,
And, lying down, have nought t'affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.
Cætera desunt-

134
HESPERIDES.
A Ternary of Littles, upon a Pipkin
of Jelly sent to a Lady.
A LITTLE saint best fits a little shrine,
A little prop best fits a little vine;
As my small cruse best fits my little wine.
A little seed best fits a little soil,
A little trade best fits a little toil;
As my small jar best fits my little oil.
A little bin best fits a little bread,
A little garland fits a little head;
As my small stuff best fits my little shed.
A little hearth best fits a little fire,
A little chapel fits a little choir;
As my small bell best fits my little spire.
A little stream best fits a little boat,
A little lead best fits a little float;
As my small pipe best fits my little note.
A little meat best fits a little belly,
As sweetly, lady, give me leave to tell ye,
This little pipkin fits this little jelly.
HESPERIDES.
135
His Prayer to Ben Jonson.
WHEN I a verse shall make,
Know I have prayed thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aid me.
Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee
Offer my Lyric.
Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar;
And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be
Writ in my psalter.

136
HESPERIDES.
To Daisies, not to Shut so Soon.
SHUT not so soon; the dull-eyed night
Has not as yet begun
To make a seizure on the light,
Or to seal up the sun.
No marigolds yet closèd are;
No shadows great appear;
Nor doth the early shepherd's star
Shine like a spangle here.
Stay but till my Julia close
Her life-begetting eye;
And let the whole world then dispose
Itself to live or die.
HESPERIDES.
137
To the Maids to Walk Abroad.
COME, sit we under yonder tree,
Where merry as the maids we'll be ;
And as on primroses we sit,
We'll venture, if we can, at wit;
If not, at draw-gloves we will play,
So spend some minutes of the day;
Or else spin out the thread of sands,
Playing at questions and commands,
Or tell what strange tricks love can do,
By quickly making one of two.
Thus we will sit and talk, but tell
No cruel truths of Philomel,
Or Phyllis, whom hard fate forced on
To kill herself for Demophon.
But fables we'll relate, how Jove
Put on all shapes to get a love,
As now a satyr, then a swan,
A bull but then, and now a man.
Next, we will act how young men woo,
And sigh and kiss as lovers do ;
And talk of brides, and who shall make
That wedding-smock, this bridal cake,
That dress, this sprig, that leaf, this vine,
That smooth and silken columbine.
This done, we'll draw lots who shall buy
And gild the bays and rosemary ;
138
HESPERIDES.
What posies for our wedding rings,
What gloves we'll give, and ribbonings;
And smiling at ourselves, decree
Who then the joining priest shall be:
What short sweet prayers shall be said,
And how the posset shall be made
With cream of lilies, not of kine,
And maiden's-blush for spiced wine.
Thus having talked, we'll next commend
A kiss to each, and so we'll end.
HESPERIDES.
139
To Anthea, who may Command him
Anything.
BID me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free,
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.
Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,
To honour thy decree :
Or bid it languish quite away,
And 't shall do so for thee.
Bid me to weep, and I will weep,
While I have eyes to see:
And having none, yet will I keep
A heart to weep for thee.
Bid me despair, and I'll despair,
Under that cypress tree :
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en death, to die for thee.

140
HESPERIDES.
Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me;
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.
1
HESPERIDES.
141
Upon Julia, Weeping.
SHE by the river sat, and sitting there,
She wept, and made it deeper by a tear.
142
HESPERIDES.
İF
ye
The Fairies.
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.
HESPERIDES.
143
Upon a Child.
HERE a pretty baby lies
Sung asleep with lullabies:
Pray be silent, and not stir
Th' easy earth that covers her.
144
HESPERIDES.
Upon a Maid.
HERE she lies, in bed of spice,
Fair as Eve in Paradise:
For her beauty it was such,
Poets could not praise too much.
Virgins come, and in a ring
Her supremest requiem sing;
Then depart, but see ye tread
Lightly, lightly o'er the dead.

HESPERIDES.
145
The Mad Maid's Song.
GOOD morrow to the day so fair;
Good morning, sir, to you;
Good morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew.

Good morning to this primrose too;
Good morrow to each maid
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
Wherein my love is laid.
Ah woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack, and well-a-day !
For pity, sir, find out that bee
Which bore my love away.
I'll seek him in your bonnet brave;
I'll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now I think they've made his grave
I'th' bed of strawberries.
I'll seek him there; I know, ere this,
The cold, cold earth doth shake him ;
But I will go, or send a kiss
By you, sir, to awake him.
253
146
HESPERIDES.
Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,
He knows well who do love him;
And who with green turfs rear his head,
And who do rudely move him.
He's soft and tender, pray take heed,
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home; but 'tis decreed,
That I shall never find him.
HESPERIDES.
147
To his Book.
MAKE haste away, and let one be
A friendly patron unto thee;
Lest wrapped from hence, I see thee lie
Torn for the use of pastery;
Or see thy injured leaves serve well
To make loose gowns for mackerel ;
Or see the grocers, in a trice,
Make hoods of thee to serve out spice.
148
HESPERIDES.
The Fair Temple: or, Oberon's Chapel.
Dedicated to Mr. John Merrifield,
Counsellor-at-Law.
RARE temples thou hast seen, I know
And rich for in and outward show :
Survey this chapel, built, alone,
Without or lime, or wood, or stone,
Then say, if one thou'st seen more fine
Than this, the fairies' once, now thine.
HESPERIDES.
149
The Temple.
A WAY enchased with glass and beads
There is, that to the chapel leads,
Whose structure, for his holy rest,
Is here the Halcyon's curious nest :
Into the which who looks, shall see
His temple of idolatry,
Where he of godheads has such store,
As Rome's Pantheon had not more.
His house of Rimmon this he calls,
Girt with small bones, instead of walls.
First, in a niche, more black than jet,
His idol-cricket there is set;
Then in a polished oval by,
There stands his idol-beetle-fly:
Next, in an arch, akin to this,
His idol-canker seated is :
Then in a round, is placed by these
His golden god, Cantharides.
So that where'er ye look, ye see
No capital, no cornice free,
Or frieze, from this fine frippery.
Now, this the fairies would have known,
Theirs is a mixed religion :
And some have heard the elves it call
Part Pagan, part Papistical.
If unto me all tongues were granted,
150
HESPERIDES.
I could not speak the saints here painted.
Saint Tit, Saint Nit, Saint Is, Saint Itis,
Who 'gainst Mab's state placed here right is.
Saint Will o' th' Wisp, of no great bigness,
But alias called here faluus ignis.
Saint Frip, Saint Trip, Saint Fill, Saint Fillie,
Neither those other saintships will I
Here go about for to recite
Their number, almost infinite,
Which, one by one, here set down are
In this most curious calendar.
First, at the entrance of the gate,
A little puppet-priest doth wait,
Who squeaks to all the comers there,
Favour your tongues, who enter here.
Pure hands bring hither, without stain.'
A second pules, "Hence, hence, profane."
Hard by, i' th' shell of half a nut,
The holy-water there is put ;
A little brush of squirrels' hairs,
Composed of odd, not even pairs,
Stands in the platter or close by,
To purge the fairy family.
Near to the altar stands the priest,
There off'ring up the Holy Grist;
Ducking in mood and perfect tense,
With (much good do't him) reverente.
The altar is not here four-square,
Nor in a form triangular;
Nor made of glass, or wood, or stone,
HESPERIDES.
151
But of a little transverse bone
Which boys and bruckelled children call
(Playing for points and pins) cockall.
Whose linen drapery is a thin,
Subtile, and ductile codlin's skin;
Which o'er the board is smoothly spread
With little seal work damaskèd.
The fringe that circumbinds it, too,
Is spangle-work of trembling dew,
Which, gently gleaming, makes a show,
Like frost-work glitt'ring on the snow.
Upon this fetuous board doth stand
Something for shew-bread, and at hand
(Just in the middle of the altar)
Upon an end, the Fairy-psalter,
Graced with es trout fly's curious wings,
Which serve for wat het ribonings.
Now, we must know, the elves are led
Right by the Rubric, which they read?
And if report of them be true,
They have their text for what they do,
Ay, and their book of canons too.
And, as Sir Thomas Parson tells,
They have their book of Articles :
And if that Fairy knight not lies,
They have their Book of Homilies;
And other Scriptures, that design
A short, but righteous discipline.
The basin stands the board upon
To take the Free Oblation,
:1


152
HESPERIDES.
A little pin-dust, which they hold
More precious than we prize our gold;
Which charity they give to many
-Poor of the parish, if there's any.
Upon the ends of these neat rails,
Hatched with the silver-light of snails,
The elves, in formal manner, fix
Two pure and holy candlesticks,
In either which a small tall bent
Burns for the altar's ornament.
For sanctity, they have, to these,
Their curious copes and surplices
Of cleanest cobweb, hanging by
In their religious vestery.
They have their ash-pans and their brooms,
To purge the chal and the rooms:
Their many mumbling mass-priests here,
And many a dapper chorister.
Their ushering vergers, here likewise,
Their canons and their chanteries:
Of cloister-monks they have enow,
Ay, and their abbey-lubbers too.
And if their legend do not lie,
They much affect the Papacy;
And since the last is dead, there's hope
Elve Boniface shall next be Pope.
They have their cups and chalices,
Their pardons and indulgences;
Their beads of nuts, bells, books, and wax
Candles, forsooth, and other knacks;

HESPERIDES.
153
Their holy oil, their fasting spittle,
Their sacred salt here, not a little.
Dry chips, old shoes, rags, grease, and bones,
Beside their fumigatïons,
To drive the devil from the cod-piece
Of the friar, of work an odd piece,
Many a trifle, too, and trinket,
And for what use, scarce man would think it.
Next then, upon the chanters' side
An apple's-core is hung up dried,
With rattling kernels, which is rung
To call to morn and even-song.
The saint, to which the most he prays
And offers incense nights and days,
The lady of the lobster is,
Whose foot-pace he doth stroke and kiss,
And humbly chives of saffron brings,
For his most cheerful offerings.
When, after these, he's paid his vows,
He lowly to the altar bows:
And then he dons the silkworm's shed,
Like a Turk's turban on his head,
And reverently departeth thence,
Hid in a cloud of frankincense;
And by the glow-worm's light well guided,
Goes to the feast that's now provided.


154
HESPERIDES.
Oberon's Feast.
"SHAPCOT to thee the fairy state
I with discretion dedicate;
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious and unfamiliar.
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We'll see the fairy-court anon.
A little mushroom-table spread,
After short prayers they set on bread,
A moon-parched grain of purest wheat,
With some small glitt'ring grit, to eat
His choice bits with; then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye is served,
We must not think his ear was starved ;
But that there was in place to stir
His spleen, the chirring grasshopper,
The merry cricket, puling fly,
The piping gnat for minstrelsy.
And now, we must imagine first,
The elves present, to quench his thirst,
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,
Brought and besweetened in a blue
And pregnant violet; which done,
His kitling eyes begin to run
HESPERIDES.
155
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery butterflies,
Of which he eats; and tastes a little
Of that we call the cuckoo's spittle.
A little fuz-ball pudding stands
By, yet not blessed by his hands,
That was too coarse; but then forthwith
He ventures boldly on the pith
Of sugared rush, and eats the sagg
And well bestrutted bee's sweet bag;
Gladding his palate with some store
Of emmets' eggs; what would he more,
But beards of mice, a newt's stewed thigh,
A bloated earwig, and a fly;
With the red-capped worm, that's shut
Within the concave of a nut,
Brown as his tooth. A little moth,
Late fattened in a piece of cloth ;
With withered cherries, mandrake's ears,
Mole's eyes; to these the slain stag's tears ;
The unctuous dewlaps of a snail,
The broke-heart of a nightingale
O'ercome in music; with a wine
Ne'er ravished from the flattering vine,
But gently pressed from the soft side
Of the most sweet and dainty bride,
Brought in a dainty daisy, which
He fully quaffs up to bewitch.
His blood to height; this done, commended
Grace by his priest; the feast is ended.
156
HESPERIDES.
The Beggar to Mab, the Fairy Queen.
PLEASE, your grace, from out your store
Give an alms to one that's poor,
That your mickle may have more.
Black I'm grown for want of meat;
Give me then an ant to eat,
Or the cleft ear of a mouse
Over-soured in drink of souce;
Or, sweet lady, reach to me
The abdomen of a bee;
Or commend a cricket's hip,
Or his huckson, to my scrip.
Give for bread a little bit
Of a pease that 'gins to chit,
And my full thanks take for it.
Flour of fuz-balls, that's too good
For a man in needy-hood:
But the meal of mill-dust can
Well content a craving man ;
Any orts the elves refuse
Well will serve the beggar's use.
But if this may seem too much
For an alms, then give me such
Little bits that nestle there
In the pris'ner's pannier.
So a blessing light upon
You and mighty Oberon :
That your plenty last till when
1 return your alms again.
HESPERIDES.
157
Oberon's Palace.
"AFTER the feast, my Shapcot, see
The Fairy Court I give to thee;
Where we'll present our Oberon led
Half tipsy to the Fairy bed,
Where Mab he finds, who there doth lie
Not without mickle majesty.
Which done, and thence removed the light,
We'll wish both them and thee good night."
Full as a bee with thyme, and red
As cherry harvest, now high fed
For lust and action; on he'll go
To lie with Mab, though all say no.
Lust has no ears; he's sharp as thorn,
And fretful, carries hay in's horn,
And lightning in his eyes; and flings
Among the elves, if mov'd, the stings
Of peltish wasps; well know his guard,
Kings, though they're hated, will be feared.
Wine led him on. Thus to a grove,
Sometimes devoted unto love,
Tinselled with twilight, he and they
Led by the shine of snails, a way
Beat with their num'rous feet, which by
Many a neat perplexity,
Many a turn, and man' a cross-
158
HESPERIDES.
Track, they redeem a bank of moss
Spongy and swelling, and far more
Soft then the finest Lemster ore :
Mildly disparkling, like those fires
Which break from the enjewelled tyres
Of curious brides; or like those mites
Of candied dew in moony nights.
Upon this convex, all the flowers
Nature begets by th' sun and showers,
Are to a wild digestion brought,
As if Love's sampler here was wrought;
Or Citherea's ceston, which
All with temptation doth bewitch.
Sweet airs move here, and more divine
Made by the breath of great-eyed kine,
Who, as they low, empearl with milk
The four-leav'd grass, or moss like silk.
The breath of monkeys met to mix
With musk-flies, are th' aromatics
Which cense this arch; and here and there,
And farther off, and everywhere
Throughout that brave mosaic yard,
Those picks or diamonds in the card,
With pips of hearts, of club and spade,
Are here most neatly interlaid.
Many a counter, many a die,
Half rotten and without an eye,
Lies hereabouts; and for to pave
The excellency of this cave,
Squirrels' and children's teeth late shed,

HESPERIDES.
159
Are neatly here enchequered,
With brownest toadstones, and the gum
That shines upon the bluer plum.
The nails fall'n off by whit-flaws: Art's
Wise hand enchasing here those warts
Which we to others (from ourselves)
Sell, and brought hither by the elves.
The tempting mole, stol'n from the neck
Of the shy virgin, seems to deck
The holy entrance; where within,
The room is hung with the blue skin
Of shifted snake; enfriezed throughout
With eyes of peacocks' trains, and trout-
Flies' curious wings; and these among
Those silver-pence, that cut the tongue
Of the red infant, neatly hung.
The glow-worm's eyes, the shining scales
Of silv'ry fish, wheat-straws, the snail's
Soft candle-light, the kitling's eyne,
Corrupted wood, serve here for shine.
No glaring light of bold-faced day,
Or other over-radiant ray,
Ransacks this room; but what weak beams
Can make reflected from these gems,
And multiply; such is the light,
But ever doubtful, day or night.
By this quaint taper-light, he winds
His errors up; and now he finds
His moon-tanned Mab, as somewhat sick,
And, love knows, tender as a chick.
160
HESPERIDES.
Upon six plump dandelions, high-
Reared, lies her elvish majesty,
Whose woolly bubbles seemed to drown
Her Mabship in obedient down;
For either sheet was spread the caul
That doth the infant's face enthral,
When it is born, by some enstyled
The lucky omen of the child;
And next to these, two blankets o'er-
Cast of the finest gossamer;
And then a rug of carded wool,
Which, sponge-like, drinking in the dull
Light of the moon, seemed to comply,
Cloud-like, the dainty deity.
Thus soft she lies; and over-head
A spinner's circle is bespread
With cobweb curtains, from the roof
So neatly sunk, as that no proof
Of any tackling can declare
What gives it hanging in the air.
The fringe about this, are those threads
Broke at the loss of maidenheads;
And all behung with these pure pearls
Dropt from the eyes of ravished girls
Or writhing brides, when panting they
Give unto Love the straighter way.
For music now he has the cries
Of fainèd-lost virginities;
The which the elves make to excite
A more unconquered appetite.

HESPERIDES.
161
The king's undressed; and now upon
The gnat's watch-word the elves are gone.
And now the bed, and Mab possessed
Of this great-little kingly quest.
We'll nobly think what's to be done,
He'll do no doubt. This flax is spun,
254
162
HESPERIDES.
The Night-piece, to Julia.
HER eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow,
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there's none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber;
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light,
Like tapers clear, without number.
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv'ry feet,
My soul I'll pour into thee.
HESPERIDES.
163
To Groves.
YE silent shades, whose each tree here
Some relic of a saint doth wear,
Who for some sweetheart's sake did prove
The fire and martyrdom of love.
Here is the legend of those saints
That died for love; and their complaints,
Their wounded hearts, and names we find
Encarved upon the leaves and rind.
Give way, give way to me, who come
Scorched with the self-same martyrdom;
And have deserved as much, Love knows,
As to be canonised 'mongst those
Whose deeds and deaths here written are
Within your greeny calendar.
By all those virgins' fillets hung
Upon your boughs, and requiems sung
For saints and souls departed hence,
Here honoured still with frankincense:
By all those tears that have been shed
As a drink-offering to the dead:
By all those true love-knots that be
With mottoes carved on every tree,
By sweet St. Phyllis, pity me!
By dear St. Iphis and the rest
Of all those other saints now blest,
164
HESPERIDES.
Me, me forsaken, here admit
Among your myrtles to be writ;
That my poor name may have the glory
To live rememb'red in your story.
HESPERIDEs.
165
The Old Wives' Prayer.
HOLY-ROOD, come forth and shield
Us i' th' city and the field :
Safely guard us, now and aye,
From the blast that burns by day,
And those sounds that us affright
In the dead of dampish night:
Drive all hurtful fiends us fro,
By the time the cocks first crow.
166
HESPERIDES.
The Hock Cart; or, Harvest Home.
To
the Right Honourable Mildmay, Earl of
Westmorland.
COME, sons of summer, by whose toil,
We are the lords of wine and oil;
By whose tough labours and rough hands,
We rip up first, then reap our lands.
Crowned with the ears of corn, now come,
And to the pipe sing harvest home.
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart
Dressed up with all the country art.
See, here a malkin, there a sheet,
As spotless pure as it is sweet;
The horses, mares, and frisking fillies,
Clad all in linen white as lilies.
The harvest swains and wenches bound
For joy, to see the hock cart crowned.
About the cart, hear how the rout
Of rural younglings raise the shout,
Pressing before, some coming after,
Those with a shout, and these with laughter.
Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves
Some prank them up with oaken leaves;
Some cross the fill-horse, some with great
Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat;
While other rustics, less attent
To prayers than to merriment,
Run after with their breeches rent.
HESPERIDES.
167
Well, on, brave boys, to your lord's hearth,
Glitt'ring with fire, where, for your mirth,
Ye shall see first the large and chief
Foundation of your feast, fat beef;
With upper stories, mutton, veal,
And bacon, which makes full the meal,
With sev'ral dishes standing by,
As, here a custard, there a pie,
And here all-tempting frumenty.
And for to make the merry cheer,
If smirking wine be wanting here,
There's that which drowns all care, stout beer,
Which freely drink to your lord's health,
Then to the plough (the commonwealth),
Next to your flails, your fans, your vats;
Then to the maids with wheaten hats;
To the rough sickle, and the crook'd scythe,
Drink, frolic boys, till all be blithe.
Feed and grow fat; and as ye eat,
Be mindful that the lab'ring neat,
As you, may have their fill of meat.
And know, besides, ye must revoke
The patient ox unto the yoke,
And all go back unto the plough
And harrow, though they're hanged up now.
And, you must know, your lord's word's true.
Feed him ye must, whose food fills you.
And that this pleasure is like rain,
Not sent ye for to drown your pain,
But for to make it spring again.
168
HESPERIDES.
The Honeycomb.
If thou hast found an honeycomb,
Eat thou not all, but taste on some :
For if thou eat'st it to excess,
That sweetness turns to loathsomeness.
Taste it to temper; then 'twill be
Marrow and manna unto thee.
HESPERIDES.
169
Charms.
BRING the holy crust of bread,
Lay it underneath the head;
'Tis a certain charm to keep
Hags away while children sleep.
170
HESPERIDES.
Another.
LET the superstitious wife
Near the child's heart lay a knife,
Point be up and haft be down,
While she gossips in the town:
This, 'mongst other mystic charms,
Keeps the sleeping child from harms.

HESPERIDES.
171
Another.
IN the morning when ye rise,
Wash your hands and cleanse your eyes
Next, be sure ye have a care
To disperse the water far:
For as far as that doth light,
So far keeps the evil sprite.

172
HESPERIDES.
Another.
IF ye fear to be affrighted,
When ye are by chance benighted,
In your pocket, for a trust,
Carry nothing but a crust:
For that holy piece of bread
Charms the danger and the dread.

HESPERIDES.
173
Another Charm for Stables.
HANG up hooks and shears to scare
Hence the hag that rides the mare,
Till they be all over wet
With the mire and the sweat :
This observed, the manes shall be
Of your horses all knot-free.

174
HESPERIDES.
1
A
To Blossoms.
FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past,
But you may stay yet here a while,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.
What, were ye born to be
An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth,
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave ;
And after they have shown their pride
Like you a while, they glide
Into the grave.
t
¦
HESPERIDES.
175
Alms.
GIVE unto all, lest He whom thou deni'st
May chance to be no other man but Christ.
176
HESPERIDES.
•
1
Upon Ben Jonson.
HERE lies Jonson with the rest
Of the poets, but the best.
Reader, wouldst thou more have known?
Ask his story, not this stone;
That will speak what this can't tell
Of his glory. So farewell.
HESPERIDES.
177
An Ode for Him.
AH, Ben!
Say how or when
Shall we, thy guests,
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
My Ben,
Or come again,
Or send to us
Thy wit's great overplus;
But teach us yet
Wisely to husband it,
Lest we that talent spend,
And having once brought to an end
That precious stock, the store
Of such a wit the world should have no more.
[1637.]
255
178
HESPERIDES.
Divination by a Daffodil.
WHEN a Daffodil I see
Hanging down his head t'wards me,
Guess I may what I must be :
First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead;
Lastly, safely buried.

HESPERIDES.
179
To the Virgins, to make much of Time.
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry ;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.
}
180
HESPERIDES.
The Crowd and Company.
IN holy meetings, there a man may be
One of the crowd, not of the company.
HESPERIDES.
181
A Defence for Women.
NAUGHT are all women: I say no,
Since for one bad, one good I know :
For Clytemnestra most unkind
Loving Alcestis there we find;
For one Medea that was bad
A good Penelope was had;
For wanton Laïs then we have
Chaste Lucrece, or a wife as grave;
And thus through womankind we see
A good and bad. Sirs, credit me.
182
HESPERIDES.
The Apparition of his Mistress calling
him to Elysium.
Desunt nonnulla-
COME then, and like two doves with silv'ry wings,
Let our souls fly to th' shades, where ever springs
Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil,
Roses and cassia, crown the untilled soil;
Where no disease reigns, or infection comes
To blast the air, but ambergris and gums.
This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire
More sweet than storax from the hallowed fire;
Where ev'ry tree a wealthy issue bears
Of fragrant apples, blushing plums, or pears,
And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles, show
Like morning sunshine, tinselling the dew.
Here in green meadows sits eternal May,
Purfling the margents, while perpetual day
So double gilds the air, as that no night
Can ever rust th' enamel of the light.
Here naked younglings, handsome striplings, run
Their goals for virgins' kisses; which when done,
Then unto dancing forth the learned round
Commixed they meet, with endless roses crowned.
And here we'll sit on primrose-banks, and see
Love's chorus led by Cupid; and we'll be

HESPERIDES.
183
Two loving followers too unto the grove
Where poets sing the stories of our love.
There thou shalt hear divine Museus sing
Of Hero and Leander; then I'll bring
Thee to the stand, where honoured Homer reads
His Odysseys and his high Iliads ;
About whose throne the crowd of poets throng
To hear the incantation of his tongue :
To Linus, then to Pindar; and that done,
I'll bring thee, Herrick, to Anacreon,
Quaffing his full-crowned bowls of burning wine,
And in his raptures speaking lines of thine,
Like to his subject; and as his frantic
Looks show him truly Bacchanalian like,
Besmeared with grapes, welcome he shall thee thither,
Where both may rage, both drink and dance together.
Then stately Virgil, witty Ovid, by
Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply
With ivory wrists his laureat head, and steeps
His eye in dew of kisses while he sleeps.
Then soft Catullus, sharp-fanged Martial
And towering Lucan, Horace, Juvenal,
And snaky Persius; these, and those whom rage,
Dropped from the jars of heaven, filled t' engage
All times unto their frenzies; thou shalt there
Behold them in a spacious theatre.
Among which glories, crowned with sacred bays
And flatt'ring ivy, two recite their plays,
Beaumont and Fletcher, swans, to whom all ears
Listen, while they, like sirens in their spheres,
184
HESPERIDES.
Sing their Evadnes: and still more for thee
There yet remains to know than thou canst see
By glimm'ring of a fancy; do but come,
And there I'll show thee that capacious room
In which thy father, Jonson, now is placed,
As in a globe of radiant fire and graced
To be in that orb crowned, that doth include
Those prophets of the former magnitude,
And he one chief. But hark, I hear the cock,
The bellman of the night, proclaim the clock
Of late struck one; and now I see the prime
Of daybreak from the pregnant east, 'tis time
I vanish; more I had to say,
But night determines here, "Away !"
HESPERIDES.
185
To the Lady Crew, upon the Death
[1638.]
of her Child.
WHY, Madam, will ye longer weep,
Whenas your baby 's lulled asleep,
And, pretty child, feels now no more
Those pains it lately felt before?
All now is silent; groans are fled;
Your child lies still, yet is not dead
But rather, like a flower hid here,
To spring again another year.
;
186
HESPERIDES.
Ceremonies for Christmas.
COME, bring with a noise,
My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing,
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your hearts' desiring,
With the last year's brand
Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending,
On your psalteries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a-teending.
Drink now the strong beer,
Cut the white loaf here,
The while the meat is a-shredding;
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by,
To fill the paste that's a-kneading.
HESPERIDES.
187
Christmas Eve, another Ceremony.
COME, guard this night the Christmas-pie,
That the thief, though ne'er so sly,
With his flesh-hooks, don't come nigh
To catch it
From him who alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of nightly fear,
To watch it.
188
HESPERIDES.
Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve.
Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the mistletoe;
Instead of holly, now upraise
The greener box, for show.
The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer
Until the dancing Easter Day
Or Easter's eve appear.
Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crispèd yew.
When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Whitsuntide.
Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.
HESPERIDES.
189
Upon Bunce. Epigram.
MONEY thou ow'st me: prithee fix a day
For payment promised, though thou never pay :
Let it be doomsday: nay, take longer scope;
Pay when thou'rt honest, let me have some hope.
190
HESPERIDEs.
Upon Mr. Ben Jonson. Epigram.
AFTER the rare arch-poet Jonson died,
The sock grew loathsome, and the buskins' pride,
Together with the stage's glory, stood
Each like a poor and pitied widowhood.
The cirque profaned was, and all postures racked;
For men did strut, and stride, and stare, not act.
Then temper flew from words, and men did squeak,
Look red, and blow, and bluster, but not speak :
No holy rage or frantic fires did stir,
Or flash about the spacious theatre.
No clap of hands, or shout, or praises-proof
Did crack the play-house sides, or cleave her roof.
Artless the scene was, and that monstrous sin
Of deep and arrant ignorance came in ;
Such ignorance as theirs was, who once hist
At thy unequalled play, the Alchemist:
Oh fie upon 'em! Lastly too, all wit
In utter darkness did, and still will sit
Sleeping the luckless age out, till that she
Her resurrection has again with thee.
HESPERIDES.
191
Dissuasions from Idleness.
CYNTHIUS pluck ye by the ear,
That ye may good doctrine hear.
Play not with the maiden hair,
For each ringlet there's a snare.
Cheek and eye, and lip and chin,
These are traps to take fools in ;
Arms and hands, and all parts else,
Are but toils, or manacles,
Set on purpose to enthral
Men, but slothfuls most of all.
Live employed, and so live free
From these fetters, like to me,
Who have found, and still can prove
The lazy man the most doth love.
192
HESPERIDES.
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 will content my Prue 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 aflright
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
Swelled with the lard of others' meat.
We bless our fortunes when we see
Our own belovèd privacy :
And like our living, where we're known
To very few, or else to none.
HESPERIDES.
193
An Epitaph upon a Virgin,
HERE a solemn fast we keep,
While all beauty lies asleep :
Hushed be all things, no noise here
But the toning of a tear;
Or a sigh of such as bring
Cowslips for her covering.
256
194
HESPERIDES.
A Country Life: To his Brother,
Mr. Tho: Herrick.
THRICE, and above, blest, my soul's half, art thou,
In thy both last and better vow,
Could'st leave the city, for exchange, to see
The country's sweet simplicity,
And it to know and practise, with intent
To grow the sooner innocent
By studying to know virtue, and to aim
More at her nature than her name.
The last is but the least; the first doth tell
Ways less to live than to live well:
And both are known to thee, who now canst live,
Led by thy conscience, to give
Justice to soon-pleased nature, and to show
Wisdom and she together go,
And keep one centre: this with that conspires
To teach man to confine desires,
And know that riches have their proper stint
In the contented mind, not mint;
And canst instruct that those who have the itch
Of craving more are never rich.
[prevent
These things thou know'st to h' height, and dost
That plague, because thou art content
With that Heav'n gave thee with a wary hand
(More blessed in thy brass than land)
To keep cheap Nature even and upright;
To cool not cocker appetite.
HESPERIDES.
195
Thus thou canst tersely live to satisfy
The belly chiefly, not the eye;
Keeping the barking stomach wisely quiet,
Less with a neat than needful diet.
But that which most makes sweet thy country life,
Is the fruition of a wife,
Whom, stars consenting with thy fate, thou hast
Got not so beautiful as chaste;
By whose warm side thou dost securely sleep,
While love the sentinel doth keep,
With those deeds done by day which ne'er affright
Thy silken slumbers in the night.
Nor has the darkness power to usher in
Fear to those sheets that know no sin.
But still thy wife, by chaste intentions led,
Gives thee each night a maidenhead.
The damasked meadows and the pebbly streams
Sweeten and make soft your dreams:
[bowers,
The purling springs, groves, birds, and well-weaved
With fields enamelled with flowers,
Present their shapes, while fantasy discloses
Millions of lilies mixed with roses.
Then dream ye hear the lamb by many a bleat
Wooed to come suck the milky teat,
While Faunus in the vision comes to keep
From rav'ning wolves, the fleecy sheep.
With thousand such enchanting dreams that meet
To make sleep not so sound as sweet:
Nor can these figures so thy rest endear,
As not to rise when chanticleer
196
HESPERIDES.
Warns the last watch; but with the dawn dost rise
To work, but first to sacrifice
e;
Making thy peace with Heav'n for some late fault,
With holy meal and spirting salt.
Which done, thy painful thumb this sentence tells us,
Jove for our labour all things sells us.
Nor are thy daily and devout affairs
Attended with those desp'rate cares,
The industrious merchant has, who for to find
Gold, runneth to the Western Ind,
And back again, tortured with fears, doth fly,
Untaught to suffer poverty.
But thou at home, blest with securest ease,
Sitt'st, and believ'st that there be seas
And wat'ry dangers, while thy whiter hap
But sees these things within thy map :
And viewing them with a more safe survey
Mak'st easy fear unto thee say,
A heart thrice walled with oak and brass, that man
Had first durst plough the ocean."
But thou at home, without or tide or gale,
Canst in thy map securely sail,
Seeing those painted countries, and so guess
By those fine shades their substances;
And from thy compass taking small advice,
Buy'st travel at the lowest price.
Nor are thine ears so deaf but thou canst hear,
Far more with wonder than with fear,
Fame tell of states, of countries, courts, and kings,
And believe there be such things,

HESPERIDES.
197
6
When of these truths thy happier knowledge lies
More in thine ears than in thine eyes.
And when thou hear'st by too true report,
Vice rules the most or all at court,
Thy pious wishes are, though thou not, there
Virtue had, and moved her sphere.
But thou liv'st fearless; and thy face ne'er shows
Fortune when she comes or goes;
But, with thy equal thoughts prepared, dost stand
To take her by the either hand;
Nor car'st which comes the first, the foul or fair;
A wise man ev'ry way lies square,
And like a surly oak with storms perplexed,
Grows still the stronger, strongly vexed.
Be so, bold spirit; stand centre-like unmoved;
And be not only thought but proved
To be what I report thee, and inure
Thyself if want comes to endure:
And so thou dost; for thy desires are
Confined to live with private Lar,
or curious whether appetite be fed,
Or with the first, or second bread.
Who keep'st no proud mouth for delicious cates;
Hunger makes coarse meats delicates.
Canst, and unurged, forsake that larded fare,
Which art, not nature makes so rare;
To taste boiled nettles, coleworts, beets, and eat
These and sour herbs as dainty meat?
While soft opinion makes thy genius say,
"Content makes all ambrosia."
198
HESPERIDES.
Nor is it that thou keep'st this stricter 'size
So much for want as exercise;
To numb the sense of dearth, which, should sin haste it,
Thou might'st but only see't, not taste it.
Yet can thy humble roof maintain a quire
Of singing crickets by thy fire;
And the brisk mouse may feast herself with crumbs,
Till that the green-eyed kitling comes;
Then to her cabin, blest she can escape
The sudden danger of a rape.
And thus thy little well-kept stock doth prove,
Wealth cannot make a life, but love.
Nor art thou so close-handed, but canst spend
(Counsel concurring with the end)
As well as spare; still conning o'er this theme,
To shun the first and last extreme;
Ordaining that thy small stock find no breach,
Or to exceed thy tether's reach,
But to live round, and close, and wisely true
To thine own self, and known to few.
Thus let thy rural sanctuary be
Elysium to thy wife and thee;
There to disport yourselves with golden measure ;
For seldom use commends the pleasure.
Live, and live blest, thrice happy pair; let breath,
But lost to one, be th' other's death.
And as there is one love, one faith, one troth,
Be so one death, one grave to both.
Till when, in such assurance live, ye may
Nor fear nor wish your dying day.
HESPERIDES.
199
On Himself.
A WEARIED pilgrim I have wandered here
Twice five-and-twenty, bate me but one year;
Long I have lasted in this world, 'tis true,
But yet those years that I have lived, but few.
Who by his grey hairs doth his lustres tell,
Lives not those years, but he that lives them well.
One man has reached his sixty years, but he
Of all those threescore has not lived half three:
He lives who lives to virtue; men who cast
Their ends for pleasure, do not live, but last.
[1640.]
?
200
HESPERIDES.
What God is.
GOD is above the sphere of our esteem,
And is the best known, not defining Hin.
HESPERIDES.
201
Comfort to a Youth that had Lost
His Love.
WHAT needs complaints,
When she a place
Has with the race
Of saints?
In endless mirth,
She thinks not on
What's said or done
In earth :
She sees no tears,
Or any tone
Of thy deep groan
She hears;
Nor does she mind,
Or think on't now.
That ever thou
Wast kind :
But changed above,
She likes not there,
As she did here,
Thy love.
Forbear, therefore,
And lull asleep
Thy woes, and weep
No more.
202
HESPERIDES.
The Ceremonies for Candlemas Day.
KINDLE the Christmas brand, and then
Till sunset let it burn;
Which quenched, then lay it up again
Till Christmas next return.
Part must be kept, wherewith to teend
The Christmas log next year;
And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend
Can do no mischief there.
HESPERIDES.
203
Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve.
Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe ;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas hall,
That so the superstitious find
No one least branch there left behind:
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there, maids, trust to me,
So many goblins you shall see.
204
HESPERIDES.
His Age, dedicated to his Peculiar Friend,
Mr. John Wickes, under the name of
Posthumus.
AH Posthumus! our years hence fly,
And leave no sound; nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.
The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress tree;
A merry mind
Looks forward, scorns what's left behind:
Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
And here enjoy our holiday.
We've seen the past best times, and these
Will ne'er return; we see the seas,
And moons to wane,
But they fill up their ebbs again :
But vanished man,
HESPERIDES.
205
Like to a lily lost, ne'er can,
Ne'er can repullulate, or bring
His days to see a second spring.
But on we must, and thither tend,
Where Ancus and rich Tullus blend
Their sacred seed:
Thus has infernal Jove decreed
We must be made
Ere long à song, ere long a shade.
Why then, since life to us is short,
Let's make it full up by our sport.
Crown we our heads with roses, then,
And 'noint with Tyrian balm; for when
We two are dead,
The world with us is buried.
Then live we free
As is the air, and let us be
Our own fair wind, and mark each one
Day with the white and lucky stone.
We are not poor, although we have
No roofs of cedar, nor our brave
Baiæ, nor keep
Account of such a flock of sheep;
Nor bullocks fed
To lard the shambles; barbels bred
To kiss our hands; nor do we wish
For Pollio's lampreys in our dish.
206
HESPERIDES.
If we can meet, and so confer,
Both by a shining saltcellar,
And have our roof,
Although not arched, yet weatherproof,
And ceiling free
From that cheap candle-bawdery;
We'll eat our bean with that full mirth,
As we were lords of all the earth.
Well then, on what seas we are tossed,
Our comfort is, we can't be lost.
Let the winds drive
Our bark, yet she will keep alive
Amidst the deeps;
'Tis constancy, my Wickes, which keeps
The pinnace up; which though she errs
I' th' seas, she saves her passengers.
Say, we must part; sweet mercy bless
Us both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness!
Can we so far
Stray to become less circular
Than we are now?
No, no, that self-same heart, that vow
Which made us one, shall ne'er undo,
Or ravel so, to make us two.
Live in thy peace; as for myself,
When I am bruised on the shelf
Of time, and show
HESPERIDES.
207
My locks behung with frost and snow ;
When with the rheum,
The cough, the ptisick, I consume
Unto an almost nothing; then,
The ages fled, I'll call again :
And with a tear compare these last
Lame and bad times with those are past,
While Baucis by,
My old lean wife, shall kiss it dry;
And so we'll sit
By th' fire, foretelling snow and sleet,
And weather by our achès, grown
Now old enough to be our own
True calendars, as pussy's ear
Washed o'er, to tell what change is near:
Then, to assuage
The gripings of the chine by age,
I'll call my young
Iülus to sing such a song
I made upon my Julia's breast,
And of her blush at such a feast.
Then shall he read that flow'r of mine
Enclosed within a crystal shrine;
A primrose next.
A picce then of a higher text.
208
HESPERIDES.
For to beget
In me a more transcendant heat,
Than that insinuating fire
Which crept into each agèd sire,
When the fair Helen from her eyes
Shot forth her loving sorceries :
At which I'll rear
Mine agèd limbs above my chair;
And hearing it,
Flutter and crow as in a fit
Of fresh concupiscence, and cry,
"No lust there's like to poetry."
Thus frantic, crazy man, God wot,
I'll call to mind things half forgot;
And oft between,
Repeat the times that I have seen.
Thus ripe with tears,
And twisting my Iülus' hairs,
Doting, I'll weep and say, in truth,
<<
Baucis, these were my sins of youth."
Then next I'll cause my hopeful lad,
If a wild apple can be had,
To crown the hearth,
Lar thus conspiring with our mirth,
Then to infuse
HESPERIDES.
209
Our browner ale into the cruise;
Which, sweetly spiced, we'll first carouse
Unto the genius of the house.
Then the next health to friends of mine,
Loving the brave Burgundian wine,
High sons of pith,
Whose fortunes I have frolicked with:
Such as could well
Bear up the magic bough and spell;
And dancing 'bout the mystic Thyrse,
Give up the just applause to verse.
To those, and then again to thee,
We'll drink, my Wickes, until we be
Plump as the cherry,
Though not so fresh, yet full as merry
As the cricket,
The untamed heifer, or the pricket,
Until our tongues shall tell our ears
We're younger by a score of years.
Thus, till we see the fire less shine
From th' embers than the kitling's eyne,
We'll still sit up,
Sphering about the wassail cup
To all those times
Which gave me honour for my rhymes.
The coal once spent, we'll then to bed,
Far more than night-bewearièd.
257
210
HESPERIDES.
The Hag.
THE hag is astride
This night for to ride;
The devil and she together:
Through thick and through thin,
Now out and then in,
Though ne'er so foul be the weather.
A thorn or a burr
She takes for a spur;
With a lash of a bramble she rides now,
Through brakes and through briars,
O'er ditches and mires,
She follows the spirit that guides now.
No beast, for his food,
Dares now range the wood,
But hushed in his lair he lies lurking;
While mischiefs by these,
On land and on seas,
At noon of night are a working,
The storm will arise
And trouble the skies
This night; and, more for the wonder,
The ghost from the tomb
Affrighted shall come,
Called out by the clap of the thunder.
HESPERIDES.
211
An Ode to Master Endymion Porter,
upon his Brother's Death.
NOT all thy flushing suns are set,
Herrick, as yet;
Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere
Frown, and look sullen evr'ywhere.
Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest,
As dead, within the west;
Yet the next morn regild the fragrant east.
Alas for me! that I have lost
E'en all almost :
Sunk is my sight; set is my sun;
And all the loom of life undone :
The staff, the elm, the prop, the shelt'ring wall
Whereon my vine did crawl,
Now, now blown down; needs must the old stock
fall.
Yet, Porter, while thou keep'st alive,
In death I thrive,
And like a Phoenix re-aspire
From out my nard and fun'ral fire;
And as I prune my feathered youth, so I
Do mar'l how I could die
When I had thee, my chief preserver, by.
212
HESPERIDES.
I'm up, I'm up, and bless that hand
Which makes me stand
Now as I do; and but for thee,
I must confess, I could not be.
The debt is paid; for he who doth resign,
Thanks to the gen'rous vine,
Invites fresh grapes to fill his press with wine.
HESPERIDES.
213
God's Price and Man's Price.
Gon bought man here with His heart's blood expense;
And man sold God here for base thirty pence.
214
HESPERIDES.
A Pastoral sung to the King.
Montano, Silvio, and Mirtillo, shepherds.
Mon. BAD are the times. Sil. And worse than they are
we.
Mon. Troth, bad are both;
The feast of shepherds fail.
worse fruit, and ill the tree :
Sil. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
And he, who used to lead the country round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drowned.
Ambo. Let's cheer him up. Sil. Behold him weeping
ripe.
Mirt. Ah, Amarillis! farewell mirth and pipe ;
Since thou art gone, no mcre I mean to play
To these smooth lawns, my mirthful roundelay.
Dear Amarillis! Mon. Hark! Sil. Mark Mirt. This
earth grew sweet
Where, Amarillis, thou didst set thy feet.
[kine
Ambo. Poor pitied youth! Mirt. And here the breath of
And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine.
This flock of wool, and this rich lock of hair,
This ball of cowslips, these she gave me here.
Sil. Words sweet as love itself. Montano, hark !
Mirt. This way she came, and this way too she went;
How each thing smells divinely redolent!
Like to a field of beans, when newly blown,
Or like a meadow being lately mown.
HESPERIDES.
215
Mon. A sweet, sad passion.
Mirt. In dewy mornings, when she came this way,
Sweet bents would bow, to give my love the day;
And when at night she folded had her sheep,
Daisies would shut, and closing, sigh and weep.
Besides (Ai me !) since she went hence to dwell,
The voice's daughter ne'er spake syllable.
But she is gone.
Sil. Mirtillo, tell us whither ?
Mirt. Where she and I shall never meet together.
Mon. Forefend it, Pan; and Pales, do thou please
To give an end. Mirt. To what? Sil. Such griefs as
these.
Mirt. Never, oh never! Still I may endure
The wound I suffer, never find a cure.
Mon. Love, for thy sake, will bring her to these hills
And dales again. Mirt. No, I will languish still;
And all the while my part shall be to weep;
And with my sighs call home my bleating sheep;
And in the rind of every comely tree
I'll carve thy name, and in that name kiss thee.
Mon. Set with the sun thy woes. Sil. The day grows old,
And time it is our full-fed flocks to fold.
Chor. The shades grow great; but greater grows our
sorrow;
But let's go steep
Our eyes in sleep,
And meet to weep
To-morrow.
216
HESPERIDES.
To Meadows.
YE have been fresh and green,
Ye have been fill'd with flowers;
And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.
You have beheld how they
With wicker arks did come
To kiss and bear away
The richer cowslips home.
Ye've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round;
Each virgin, like a spring,
With honeysuckles crowned.
But now, we see none here,
Whose silv'ry feet did tread,
And with dishevelled hair
Adorned this smoother mead.
Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,
Ye're left here to lament
Your poor estates, alone.
HESPERIDES.
217
To his Paternal Country.
O EARTH! earth earth! hear thou my voice, and be
Loving and gentle for to cover me:
Banished from thee I live, ne'er to return,
Unless thou giv'st my small remains an urn.
218
HESPERIDES.
To his dear God.
I'LL hope no more
For things that will not come,
And if they do, they prove but cumbersome.
Wealth brings much woe:
And, since it fortunes so,
'Tis better to be poor
Than so t' abound
As to be drowned,
Or overwhelmed with store.
Pale care, avaunt !
I'll learn to be content
With that small stock Thy bounty gave or lent.
What may conduce
To my most healthful use,
Almighty God, me grant;
But that or this
That hurtful is,
Deny Thy suppliant.
HESPERIDES.
219
Suspicion makes Secure.
HE that will live of all cares dispossessed
Must shun the bad, ay, and suspect the best.
220
HESPERIDES.
His Grange, or Private Wealth.
f
THOUGH clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A cock
I have to sing how day draws on.
I have
A maid, my Prue, by good luck sent,
To save
That little Fates me gave or lent.
A hen
I keep, which, creeking day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay.
A goose
I have, which, with a jealous ear,
Lets loose
Her tongue to tell what danger 's near.
A lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose dam
An orphan left him, lately dead.
A cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching mouse.
To these
HESPERIDES.
221
A Trasy I do keep, whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy:
Which are
But toys, to give my heart some ease:
Where care
None is, slight things do lightly please.
222
1
HESPERIDES.
The Olive Branch.
SADLY I walked within the field
To see what comfort it would yield;
And as I went my private way,
An clive branch before me lay;
And seeing it I made a stay,
And took it up, and viewed it; then
Kissing the omen, said,
Be, be it so, and let this be
A divination unto me;
Amen:
That in short time my woes shall cease,
And Love shall crown my end with peace."
HESPERIDES.
223
A Thanksgiving to God for His
House.
LORD, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof,
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry;
Where Thou, my chamber for to ward,
Hast set a guard
Of harmless thoughts, to watch and keep
Me while I sleep.
Low is my porch, as is my fate,
Both void of state:
And yet the threshold of my door
Is worn by th' poor,
Who thither come and freely get
Good words or meat.
Like as my parlour, so my hall
And kitchen's small:
A little buttery, and therein
A little bin,
Which keeps my little loaf of bread
Unchipped, unflead;
Some brittle sticks of thorn or briar
Make me a fire,
224
HESPERIDES.
Close by whose living coal I sit,
And glow like it.
Lord, I confess too, when I dine,
The pulse is Thine,
And all those other bits that be
There placed by Thee;
The worts, the purslane, and the mess
Of water-cress,
Which of Thy kindness Thou hast sent;
And my content
Makes those, and my belovèd beet,
To be more sweet.
'Tis Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And giv'st me wassail bowls to drink,
Spiced to the brink.
Lord, 'tis Thy plenty-dropping hand
That soils my land,
And giv'st me, for my bushel sown,
Twice ten for one:
Thou mak'st my teeming hen to lay
Her egg each day;
Besides my healthful ewes to bear
Me twins each year;
The while the conduits of my kine
Run cream, for wine.
All these, and better Thou dost send
Me, to this end,
That I should render, for my part,
A thankful heart,
HESPERIDES.
225
Which, fired with incense, I resign,
As wholly Thine;
But the acceptance, that must be,
My Christ, by Thee.
258
226
HESPERIDES.
To Keep a True Lent.
Is this a fast to keep
The larder lean,
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg'd to go,
Or show
A downcast look, and sour?
No; 'tis a fast, to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat
And meat
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate;
To circumcise Thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin;
And that's to keep thy Lent.
HESPERIDES.
227
Crutches.
THOU seest me, Lucia, this year droop;
Three zodiacs filled more, I shall stoop;
Let crutches then provided be,
To shore up my debility:
Then while thou laugh'st, I'll sighing cry,
"A ruin underpropped am I :
Don will I then my beadsman's gown,
And when so feeble I am grown
As my weak shoulders cannot bear
The burden of a grasshopper,
Yet with the bench of agèd sires,
When I and they keep termly fires,
With my weak voice I'll sing or say
Some odes I made of Lucia :
Then will I heave my withered hand
To Jove the mighty, for to stand
Thy faithful friend, and to pour down
Upon thee many a benison.
228
HESPERIDES.
Upon his Departure Hence.
THUS I
Pass by,
And die,
As one
Unknown
And gone:
I'm made
A shade,
And laid
I' th' grave,
There have
My cave:
Where tell
I dwell,
Farewell.
HESPERIDES.
229
On Himself.
LOST to the world, lost to myself, alone
Here now I rest under this marble stone,
In depth of silence, heard and seen of none.
230
HESPERIDES.
His Winding-sheet.
COME thou, who art the wine and wit
Of all I've writ;
The grace, the glory, and the best
Piece of the rest.
Thou art of what I did intend
The all and end;
And what was made, was made to meet
Thee, thee my sheet;
Come then, and be to my chaste side
Both bed and bride.
We two, as relics left, will have
One rest, one grave;
And, hugging close, we will not fear
Lust ent'ring here,
Where all desires are dead or cold,
As is the mould;
And all affections are forgot,
Or trouble not.
Here, here the slaves and pris'ners be
From shackles free,
And weeping widows, long oppressed,
Do here find rest.
The wronged client ends his laws.
Here, and his cause.
Here those long suits of Chancery lie
Quiet, or die;
i
HESPERIDES.
231
And all Star Chamber bills do cease,
Or hold their peace.
Here needs no Court for our Request,
Where all are best,
All wise, all equal, and all just
Alike i' th' dust.
Nor need we here to fear the frown
Of court or crown,
Where Fortune bears no sway o'er things,
There all are kings.
In this securer place we'll keep,
As lulled asleep;
Or for a little time we'll lie,
As robes laid by,
To be another day re-worn,
Turned, but not torn,
Or like old testaments engrossed,
Locked up, not lost;
And for a while lie here concealed,
To be revealed
Next, at that great Platonic Year,
And then meet here.
232
HESPERIDES.
The White Island: or, Place of the
Blessed.
In this world, the Isle of Dreams,
While we sit by sorrow's streams,
Tears and terrors are our themes,
Reciting :
But when once from hence we fly,
More and more approaching nigh
Unto young eternity,
Uniting,
In that whiter island where
Things are evermore sincere,
Candour here and lustre there,
Delighting;
There no monstrous fancies shall
Out of hell an horror call,
To create, or cause at all,
Affrighting.
There in calm and cooling sleep
We our eyes shall never steep,
But eternal watch shall keep,
Attending
HESPERIDES.
233
Pleasures such as shall pursue
Me immortalised, and you;
And fresh joys, as never too
Have ending.
234
HESPERIDES.
Anacreontic.
I MUST
Not trust
Here to any;
Bereaved,
Deceived,
By so many :
As one
Undone
By my losses,
Comply
Will I
With my crosses.
Yet still
I will
Not be grieving;
Since thence
And hence
Comes relieving.
But this
Sweet is
In our mourning,
Times bad
And sad
Are a turning;
HESPERIDES.
235
And he
Whom we
See dejected,
Next day
We may
See erected.
236
HESPERIDES.
j
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 processïon;
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,
HESPERIDES.
237
His Litany to the Holy Spirit.
IN the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drowned in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the artless doctor sees
No one hope, but of his fees,
And his skill runs on the lees,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When his potion and his pill,
His, or none, or little skill,
Meet for nothing but to kill,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me !
238
HESPERIDES.
When the passing-bell doth toll,
And the furies in a shoal
Come to fright a parting soul,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more than true,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the priest his last hath prayed,
And I nod to what is said,
'Cause my speech is now decayed,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When, God knows, I'm tossed about,
Either with despair or doubt,
Yet, before the glass be out,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me !
When the tempter me pursu'th
With the sins of all my youth,
And half damns me with untruth,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the flames and hellish cries
Fright mine ears and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprise,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me !
HESPERIDES.
239
When the Judgment is revealed,
And that opened which was sealed,
When to thee I have appealed,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

240
HESPERIDES.
God Hears Us.
GOD, who's in heav'n, will hear from thence,
If not to th' sound, yet to the sense.
HESPERIDES.
241
To his Friend on the Untuneable
Times.
PLAY I could once; but, gentle friend, you see
My harp hung up here on the willow tree.
Sing I could once; and bravely, too, inspire
With luscious numbers my melodious lyre.
Draw I could once, although not stocks or stones
Amphion-like, men made of flesh and bones,
Whither I would; but, ah! I know not how
I feel in me this transmutation now.
Grief, my dear friend, has first my harp unstrung,
Withered my hand, and palsy-struck my tongue.
259
242
HESPERIDES.
His Last Request to Julia.
I HAVE been wanton and too bold, I fear,
To chafe o'ermuch the virgin's cheek or ear:
Beg for my pardon, Julia; he doth win
Grace with the gods who's sorry for his sin :
That done, my Julia, dearest Julia, come,
And go with me to choose my burial room.
My fates are ended; when thy Herrick dies,
Clasp thou his book, then close thou up his eyes.
HESPERIDES.
243
On Himself.
WEEP for the dead, for they have lost this light;
And weep for me, lost in an endless night;
ļ
Or mourn or make a marble verse for me,
Who writ for many.
Benedicite
244
HESPERIDES.
Upon the Troublesome Times.
O TIMES most bad,
Without the scope
Of hope
Of better to be had!
Where shall I go,
Or whither run
To shun
This public overthrow?
No places are,
This I am sure,
Secure
In this our wasting war.
Some storms we've past;
Yet we must all
Down fall,
And perish at the last.
HESPERIDES.
245
His Return to London.
FROM the dull confines of the drooping West,
To see the day spring from the pregnant East,
Ravished in spirit I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blessed place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallowed foot I touch the ground
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crowned.
O fruitful genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty year by year ;
O place! O people! manners, framed to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is, though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since called back, henceforward let me be,
O native country! repossessed by thee;
For, rather than I'll to the West return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall,
Give thou my sacred relics burial.
[1647.]
246
HESPERIDES.
Dean-Bourn, a rude River in Devon,
by which sometimes he lived.
DEAN-BOURN, farewell; I never look to see
Dean or thy warty incivility.
Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams
And makes them frantic, ev'n to all extremes,
To my content I never should behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rocky thou art; and rocky we discover
Thy men; and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners, now, and ever known
To be a rocky generation!
A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude almost as rudest savages,
With whom I did, and may resojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men,
HESPERIDES.
247
His Wish to Privacy.
GIVE me a cell
To dwell,
Where no foot hath
A path:
There will I spend,
And end
My wearied years
In tears.
248
HESPERIDES.
To his Peculiar friend, Mr. John
Wicks.
SINCE shed or cottage I have none,
I sing the more, that thou hast one ;
To whose glad threshold and free door
I may, a poet, come, though poor;
And eat with thee a savoury bit,
Paying but common thanks for it.
Yet should I chance, my Wicks, to see
An over-leaven look in thee,
To sour the bread and turn the beer
To an exalted vinegar ;
Or shouldst thou prize me as a dish
Of thrice-boiled worts, or third day's fish;
I'd rather hungry go and come,
Than to thy house be burdensome :
Yet in my depth of grief I'd be
One that should drop his beads for thee.
HESPERIDES.
249
His Poetry his Pillar.
ONLY a little more
I have to write,
Then I'll give o'er,
And bid the world Good-night.
'Tis but a flying minute
That I must stay,
Or linger in it;
And then I must away.
O Time, that cut'st down all,
And scarce leav'st here
Memorial
Of any men that were!
How many lie forgot
In vaults beneath,
And piecemeal rot
Without a fame in death?
Behold this living stone
I rear for me,
Ne'er to be thrown
Down, envious Time, by thee
250
HESPERIDES.
Pillars let some set up,
If so they please,
Here is my hope
And my pyramides.
HESPERIDES.
251
The Bad Season makes the Poet Sad.
DULL to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses:
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplexed the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drowned
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crowned;
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
Knock at a star with my exalted head.
252
HESPERIDES.
To a Gentlewoman, objecting to Him.
his Grey Hairs.
Am I despised, because you say,
And I dare swear, that I am grey?
Know, lady, you have but your day:
And time will come when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair ;
And when, though long it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the show
Where such a rare carnation grew.
Ah! then too late, close in your chamber kecping,
It will be told
That you are old,
By those true tears you're weeping.
HESPERIDES.
253
On Himself.
I WILL no longer kiss,
I can no longer stay;
The way of all flesh is,
That I must go this day.
Since longer I can't live,
My frolic youths, adieu;
My lamp to you I'll give,
And all my troubles too.
254
HESPERIDES.
Comforts in Contentions.
THE same who crowns the conqueror will be
A coadjutor in the agony.
HESPERIDES.
255
His Charge to Julia at his Death.
DEAREST of thousands, now the time draws near,
That with my lines my life must full-stop here.
Cut off thy hairs, and let thy tears be shed
Over my turf, when I am burièd.
Then for effusions, let none wanting be,
Or other rites that do belong to me;
As Love shall help thee, when thou dost go hence
Unto thy everlasting residence.
256
HESPERIDES.
To his Book.
Go thou forth, my book, though late,
Yet be timely fortunate.
It may chance good luck may send
Thee a kinsman or a friend,
That may harbour thee, when I
With my fates neglected lie.
If thou know'st not where to dwell,
See, the fire 's by.
Farewell.

HESPERIDES.
257
Epitaph on the Tomb of Sir Edward Giles
and his Wife in the South Aisle of
Dean Prior Church, Devon.
No trust to metals nor to marbles when
These have their fate, and wear away as men :
Times, titles, trophies, may be lost and spent ;
But virtue rears the eternal monument.
What more than these can tombs or tombstones pay? -
But here's the sun set of a tedious day:
These two asleep are; I'll but be undressed
And so to bed: pray, wish us all good rest.
260
NOTES.
page line
1
1
3 Пock-carts.-The last in from the harvest-field.
3 Wassails.-Anglo-Saxon wes hál, lit. "be whole," a
form of wishing good health; hence, merry meetings.
1 3 Wakes.-Parish festivals, kept originally on the day of
the dedication of the parish church.
2
9 Eclogues.-Greek ékλoyń, literally a selection, especially
of poems; Herrick seems here to use the word in its
original sense of "chosen poems,' and not in its
present meaning of "pastoral poems,' in distinction
from "Bucolics" in the following line.
""
2 13 Neat.-Black cattle oxen; so named from their use-
fulness from Anglo-Saxon neótan, to use, employ.
8
3 Compare St. John ii. 10.-"When
When men have well
drunk."
7 Thyrse." A javelin twin'd with ivy."-Herrick.
3
3
8 Orgies." Songs to Bacchus."-Herrick.
3
8 "A round, a round "-i.e., a dance, a dance.
3 10 Cato and Brutus are commonplaces of examples of severe
virtue. See the following poem, 1. 2.— G,
260
NOTES.
page line
5
0
8
on
5 Julia. In the "Hesperides
Hesperides" there are no less than
seventy-one poems addressed, or relating, to Julia;
while the greatest number to any other of his "dainty
mistresses" is fourteen, namely, to Anthea. Next in
number are the eleven to Electra. Throughout this
series of seventy-one poems one seems to discover the
same "stately Julia "whom he so charmingly describes
-
in the lines-
UPON HIS JULIA.
Will ye hear what I can say
Briefly of my Julia?
Black and rolling is her eye,
Double chinned, and forehead high;
Lips she has, all ruby red,
Cheeks like cream enclareted;
And a nose that is the grace
And proscenium of her face.
So that we may guess by these
The other parts will richly please.
This imitation of Anacreon might be a fragment of some
Greek Midsummer-Night's Dream," so incomparable
is it. It was set to music, for three voices, by Henry
Lawes in the second book of his "Ayres and Dialogues,"
p. 40, 1655. In John Playford's "Treasury of Musick,"
1669, it is called "A strife betwixt two Cupids recon-
ciled." Henry Lawes set one of Anacreon's odes in the
first book of the "Ayres and Dialogues." For other
imitations of Anacreon, see p. 37, Upon Cupid; p. 64.
The Captive Bee, etc.
Scare-fire.-An alarm caused by fire.
10 10 Compare this last line with Marlowe's translation of
the last line of the 5th elegy of the 1st book of Ovid's
Amores-Proveniant medii sic mihi sæpe dies; "Jove
send me more such afternoons as this!"
11 8 Tincture.-Latin, tinctus, dyed; hence, colour, hue.
13
8 Quarrelets.-Diminutive of quarrel or quarry, a small
square for paving, a pane of glass; hence, tiny squares.
NOTES.
261
page line
15
15
15
18
19
5 A state. A canopy of state.-P
6 Tiffany." A sort of fine silk."
7 Parly.-i.e., diminutive of Parliament.
4 Circumfused.-Latin, circumfusus, enclosed; compare
Cicero, Academiæ Questiones, 2, 39, 122-Latent ista
omnia, Luculle, crassis occultata et circumfusa tenebris.
4 Dollies.-Sweethearts.
·
•
19 13 Wilson.-John Wilson, composer and lutinist; born at
Faversham in Kent; created doctor of music, Oxford,
1644, and professor there in 1656. He is supposed to be
the "
Jack Wilson" of Shakespeare's stage. Anthony à
Wood tells us he was "the best at the lute in all
England," and, elsewhere, adds that he was much
admired, "especially by his majesty king Charles I.
who, while he played, did usually lean or lay his
hand on his shoulder.' A Wood also, in his account
of Benjamin Rogers, a composer of that time, gives us
another delightful moment of the man. Mr. Rogers
had set the Psalms in Latin and some hymns of four
parts, and had composed certain Court Ayres, Pavins,
Almains, Corants, and Sarabands, together with some
other pieces both in Latin and English. To show the
excellency of these compositions, à Wood relates that
"Dr. Wilson the professor, the greatest and most curious
judge of music that ever was, usually wept when he
heard them well perform'd, as being wrapt up in an
ecstasy, or, if you will, melted down." "This Dr.
Wilson, who was a great humourist and a pretender to
buffoonry, died in his house at the Horse Ferry, within
the liberty of Westminster, on the 22nd day of Feb.
1673, aged 78 years, ten months, and 17 days: where-
upon his body was buried in the little cloyster belonging
to the abby church of St. Peter within the said city of
Westminster." See A Wood's Fasti for 1644.
In
19 13 Gotiere.- This must be Jacques Gouter, a Frenchman,
and a lutinist only surpassed by John Wilson.
Charles I.'s charter to Nicholas Lanier, he is spoken of
as "Mounsieur Gaultier," There is an etching of him
262
NOTES.
page line
holding a theorbo, inscribed :-" IACOBO GOVTERO
INTER REGIOS MAGNE BRITANNIE ORPHEOS
ET AMPHIONES LYDIE DORIÆ PHRYGIA TES-
TVDINIS FIDICINI ET MODVLATORVM PRIN-
CIPI:" etc. It is signed, "Ioannes Liuius fecit et
excudit." In the print-room of the British Museum is
an impression of this etching in a very early state of
the plate. The face is somewhat Dutch in character,
with long, full hair; but the eyes are large and pene-
trative, and the nose and mouth finely modelled. In
this state it is a noble portrait.
20 6 Pelops.-Tantalus, the son of Jupiter, feasted the gods
with the flesh of his own son Pelops, which they so
abhorred that they all abstained from eating, except
Ceres, who unawares eat up the child's shoulder; but
Jupiter restored him to life again, and gave him a
shoulder of ivory.
20
p
9 Ixion's cloud.-Ixion "was the son of Plegias, who
having murthered his father-in-law, went up and down
the earth as a vagabond, at last Iupiter did pittie
him, and expiating his crime, received him into heaven;
where he began to fall in love with Iuno, desiring the
use of her body, but Iupiter understanding_this,
presented to him a cloude, having the shape of Iuno;
of this cloude the centaures were procreated; there-
fore Ixion was sent down again to the earth, where
bragging that he had lyen with Iuno, was by Iupiter's
thunder cast down to hell, where being tyed to a
wheelc, he is continually whirled about."-Mystagogus
Poeticus, 1648.
21 I call and I call.-Looks like the catchword of some
game.-G.
22
4 Lules of amber.—The word "amber" must have been
used here merely from stress of rhyme. Mr. A. J.
Hipkins, a first authority on these matters, tells me
that though a lute was commonly inlaid with ivory,
tortoise-shell, and mother-o'-pearl, yet he does not
remember a single example in which amber was used,
not only in that, but in any other musical instrument.
It had been ingeniously suggested to him that the
amber varnish used in the making of the lute might
here be meant but I am afraid this would be taking
Herrick too literally.
NOTES.
263
page line
23
28
22 23
30
-
Imitated from Anacreon, Ode iii.; compare Thomas
Stanley's translation, 1651, p. 4:-
LOVES NIGHT WALK.
Downward was the wheeling Bear
Driven by the Waggoner:
Men by powerful sleep opprest,
Gave their busie troubles rest:
Love, in this still depth of night,
Lately at my house did light:
Where perceiving all fast lockt,
At the door he boldly knockt:
Who'se that (said I) that does keep
Such a noise, and breaks my sleep?
Ope saith Love, for pity hear;
"Tis a Childe thou needst not fear,
Wet and weary, from his way
Led by this dark night astray:
With compassion thus I heard;
Light I struck; the door unbarr'd:
Where a little Boy appears,
Who wings, bow, and quiver bears;
Near the fire I made him stand;
With my own I chaf't his hand;
And with kindly busie care
Wrung the chill drops from his hair;
When well warm'd he was, and d. y,
Now, saith he, tis time to try
If my bow no hurt did get,
For methinks the string is wet:
With that, drawing it, à dart
He let fly that piered my heart:
Leaping then, and laughing said,
Come, my friend, with me be glad;
For my Bow thou seest is sound,
Since thy heart hath got a wound.
8 The Prime of Paradise.-Eve; from Latin primus, first.
This little poem would seem to be a rendering into verse
of the following passage from the fifth scene of the third
act of "The Shoemaker's Holiday," of Thomas Dekker;
first published in 1600" Lets be merry, whiles we are
yong; old age, sacke and sugar will steale vpon vs, ere
we be aware.'

264
NOTES.
page line
31
33
83
84
38
40
7 Maund.-A basket with handles.
2 Clean.-Pure.
6 Civil.-Latin, civilis, pertaining to citizens; hence, well-
ordered: "like a civil wilderness," meaning, I suppose,
an arranged disorder in the dress, or as Herrick has
it elsewhere, "Order in a sweet neglect."
This poem upon Julia's hair recalls the title of another
upon the same all-important subject.
UPON JULIA'S HAIR BUNDLED UP IN A GOLDEN NET.
For dainty charm, this is a work of art in itself.
There are in the Hesperides many similar verses
addressed to the gods of the classics; for example, To
Apollo. A short Hymn," "A Hymn to Bacchus,
his Household Gods," so also to Juno, Neptune, Mars,
etc., and this—
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-faced owl shall be
Offered up with vows to thee.
See p. 51 for the Hymn to the Muses."
Set to music by Henry Lawes in John Playford's
"Treasury of Music," London, 1669, book i., p 50. Play
ford probably took it from the third book of the "Ayres
and Dialogues," of which there is no copy in the British
Museum.
40 16 That is, I suppose,
worthy part.
41
41
1 Whenas.-When.
"How she is worth her own least
3 Liquefaction.-Latin, liquefactus, having become liquid;
hence, "liquefaction of her clothes," water-like move-
ment of her clothes.
NOTES.
265
page line
42
45
47
―
-
A not very deep reading of Ben Jonson's works will
show how greatly Herrick was influenced by him.
Indeed, the "Hesperides" may be said to be splendid
development of Jonson's "Forest," Underwoods," and
Epigrams," considered as a whole.
9 Admire.-Latin, admirari, to wonder at.
This is one of several imitations of the fourth elegy of
the second book of Ovid's Amores. I have chosen the
present poem, not because it is the finest version, but
because it clashes less than the rest with our own more
refined notions of love-making. Though Ovid's poem
is as sensuous as Herrick's imitations, yet it has nothing
of their repulsiveness; nor has Herrick caught anything
of those wonderful touches, as in the line-
"Candida me capiet, capiet me flava puella."
of the present elegy, or that magnificent outburst in the
Ars Amoris, book 3, lines 547-552,-passages that caused
Milton to think that had Ovid lived in more fortunate
circumstances, he would have been the greatest of the
Latin poets. I cannot, however, refrain from giving the
first three verses of another version of this theme, they
being so considerably finer than the others.
Whatsoever thing I see,
Rich or poor although it be,
'Tis a mistress unto ine.
Be my girl or fair or brown,
Does she smile, or does she frown,
Still I write a sweetheart down.
Be she rough or smooth of skin,
When I touch, I then begin
For to let affection in.
47 8 "Omnibus historiis se meus aptat amor."-Ovid, lino
44 of the same elegy.
49
Canticle.-Latin, canticulum, a little song.
266
NOTES.
page line
49 1 and 2-A literal translation of the opening sentence of
Horace's 25th Ode of the 3rd Book:-" Quo me, Bacche,
rapis tui plenum ?" Otherwise the poems are dis-
49
51
52
similar
1 Whurry.-To whisk along quickly.
2 Wit. Here in its original Anglo-Saxon sense of “mind,”
"understanding."
Set by Henry Lawes in John Playford's "Select Musicall
Ayres," 1652, p. 8.
52 10 Curious.-Latin, curiosus, attentive, inquiring.
54
55
Imitated from Anacreon, Ode xl. Thomas Stanley's
translation (1651, p. 21) resembles so closely Herrick's
version, that Stanley must have stolen from Herrick, or
Herrick have improved upon Stanley.
THE BEE.
Love, a Bee that lurkt among
Roses saw not, and was stung:
Who for his hurt finger crying,
Running sometimes, sometimes flying,
Doth to his fair Mother hie,
And oh help cries he, I dy;
A wing'd Snake hath bitten me,
Call'd by countreymen a Bee:
At which Venus; if such smart
A Bees little sting impart,
How much greater is the pain.
They whom thou hast hurt sustain.
This translation of Stanley's does not occur in his
edition of 1647.
Sir Clipseby Crew was son and heir of Sir Ranulphe
Crewe, Chief-Justice of the King's Bench.
He was
knighted 18th of June, 1620. He married in 1625 Jane,
daughter of Sir John Pulteney, of Misterton co.,
Leicester, Knight. She died 2nd of December, 1639, in
her fiftieth year, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. He was also buried there 3rd February, 1649.-G.
NOTES.
267
page line
Though Herrick, in this gorgeously-coloured piece of
verse; had no doubt the "Epithalamia" of Jonson in his
nind, yet it was Catullus' poem, "On the Nuptials of
Julia and Manlius," carmen lxi, which was chiefly
present to him.
Compare the first six lines of the fourth stanza with
the following verses from Catullus :--
+
Hymen o Hymenæe:
Cinge tempora floribus
Suave olentis amaraci.
Flammeum cape: laetus huc
Huc veni, nivis gerens
Luteum pede soccum :
Pelli humum pedibus, manu
Pineam quate tædam.
Hymen, O Hymen! Garland your brows with the flowers
of the sweet smelling marjoram; take the saffron veil
and, filled with joy, come hither, hither, with the yellow
sandal bound on your white foot: . Beat the ground
with your feet, and shake the pine torch in your hand.
But, indeed, there is also a great similarity between
the two poems taken as a whole.
55 19 Bedabbled.—¿c., with dew; wet with dew.
57
11 Coddled.-Parboiled, i.c., overheated and steaming. A
form, I suppose, of candled; Latin, caldus, hot. So
codlin, an apple to be boiled,
57 18 Napery.—Table linen.
57
26 Telling.-Counting.
58
3 Points.-A tagged lace which held up the breeches.-G.
58 17 Lady-smock.-Meadow Bittercress, Cuckooflower.
58 19-20 Prick-madam.-? The yellow stonecrop.
Maidens-
blush.-The garden rose. These, with Gentle-heart, of
which I have not been able to find the meaning, Dr.
Grosart tells us were common bridal flowers.
268
NOTES.
page line
59 9 Brusle like a Swan.-i.e., swell out, as a swan swells out
its feathers.
59 27 Sack-posset.-Milk curdled with canary wine.
60
4 Grutch.-Original form of "grudge."
60 28 Blaze.-Publish abroad.
62
66
06
4 Fantastic pannicles.-The cells of the brain in which the
fancy or imagination is bred.
This poem to his favourite Latin Poets may be taken as
an occasion for a note on Herrick's reading in general.
In the "Hesperides," Musæus, Pindar, Lucan, Juvenal,
Persius, Propertius, Tibullus are mentioned on one
occasion only; Catullus and Ovid twice; Virgil
and Martial three times; Homer, Anacreon, and
Horace four times. Besides this, two of the Odes of
Anacreon are rendered into verse, and many others of
the Hesperides are more or less imitations of Anacreon's
manner. The 9th Ode of the 3rd book of Horace is
translated, and many of his lines imitated. Herrick
also translates part of an epigram of Martial, and turns
a passage out of Petronius into a couplet; while Catul-
lus, Ovid, and Virgil are all more or less imitated.
However, these instances must not be taken in too
absolute a spirit. Doubtlessly they could be much
extended with further reading.
Besides the poem Upon Master Fletcher's incom-
parable Plays," printed in Beaumont and Fletcher's
Works, 1647, these dramatists are spoken of together as
being in Elysium with Ben Jonson, excepting whom, the
only other reference to an English poet is the verses
addressed "To M. Denham, on his Prospective Poem,"
—that is, "Cooper's Hill." Upon Ben Jonson, who,
with Catullus, seems to have influenced Herrick more
than any other poet, there are five poems.
In the noble number" mention is made of several
of the fathers-St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Bernard, St. Ambrose, as also of Boetius and
Cassiodorus, etc.
7 Pap.-i.e., Sap.
66 12 Retorted.-Latin, retortus; tossed wildly back.
NOTES.
269
page line
67
69
70
70
70
72
77
77
77
79
4 A play upon the poet's name of 'Naso,' and referring
also to that amorous disposition which was supposed to
be indicated by a long nose.-G.
Compare Suckling's "Ballad upon a Wedding," 8th
stanza :-
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light.
This poem was first published in "The Wit's Recrea-
tion," 1640.
3 Erring.-Latin, erro, to wander, stray about.
4 Transgression.-Latin, transgressio, literally a going
across; hence, movement.
9 Pounced.-Sprinkled as was the pounce, formerly used,
instead of blotting-paper, to dry writing.
7 Pitcher.-Funeral urn, as in line 4.
2 Camphire.-The "clusters of camphire" of the Song of
Solomon. It is the 'henna' of the Arabs, with which
they dye their nails, palms, etc. A small shrub, with
dark bark, leaves pale green like a lilac, and bearing
clusters of white and yellow blossoms, very fragrant.
2 Storax, Spikenard, galbanum.-Precious gums.
4 Vestry.-Herrick seems to be thinking of the cedar
presses in which the vestments of the Catholic priest
are kept.
This poem would seem to be imitated from the 16th of
the Basia of Johannes Bonefonius. Ben Jonson's
song, "Still to be neat, still to be drest," is imitated
from Bonefonius' "Semper munditias, semper, Basilissa,
decores." Bonefonius died in 1614.
Donec pressius incubo labellis,
Et diduco avidus tuae, Puella,
Flosculos animae suave olentes,
Unus tum videor mihi Deorum,
Seu quid altius est beatiusve.

270
NOTES.
page line
Mox ut te eripis, ecce ego repente,
Unus qui Superúm mihi videbar,
Seu quid altíus est beatiusve,
Orci mi videor relatus umbris,
Seu quid inferius ve tristiusve.
"So long as I bend over you, dearest, with my lips
touching yours, and eagerly drink in the sweet-smelling
flowerlets of your soul, I seem to myself as one of the
gods, or something nobler and more blessed. But as
soon as you snatch yourself away from me, behold!
I who but just now seemed as one of the gods, or some-
thing nobler and more blessed, suddenly am borne
away down to the shades of Orcas, or to some depths
more profound and dismal."
83 19 Cauls.-Nets or coverings, especially for the head; head-
dresses.
84 26 Male-incense. Some powerfully odorous species.-P.
85
87
87
88
88
1 Thou shalt not all die.-Horace, 6th line of the last ode
of the 3rd book, "Non omnis moriar."
5 Carcanet.-Diminutive of the French, carcan, a collar of
jewels, or of gold.
8 Dardanium.-"A bracelet, from Dardanus so call'd."
-Herrick.
This poem is set to music by Henry Lawes in John
Playford's "Treasury of Musick," 1669, book iii., p. 29,
under the title, "A Dialogue on a Kisse."
9 The babies of the eyes. This is a favourite expression, not
only with Herrick, but with many of the contemporary
poets, Randolph, Suckling, etc. It is difficult to say
what the phrase exactly means. The usual explana-
tion is that the tiny reflection which one sees of oneself
on closely looking into the eye of another is meant.
The earliest instance I am aware of seems, however, to
imply a deeper meaning. It occurs in a poem in
Toitel's Miscellany, by an unknown author, called, "A
praise of his Ladye":-
"In eche of her two cristall eyes
Smileth a naked boye.
NOTES.
271
page line
89
89
89
91
by which, I suppose, Cupido is meant, or as St. John
has it, "the lust of the eyes.
""
6 Candid.-Latin, candidus, white.
8 Decurted.-Latin, decurtare, to cut off; shortened,
9 Auspice.-Latin, auspicium, an omen.
2 Twelfth-tide King.-The "Holy Child" Jesus.-G.
92 12 Civility.-Latin, civilitas, good breeding.
7 8
93
94
94
On repeated consideration, I now think that this poem
must have been written in Devonshire, and about the
same time as the song to the Daffodils. Compare the
last three lines of this poem with the 7th and 8th of the
5th stanza of the present poem to Corinna.
3 Titan.-The sun.-P.
6 Beads.-The beads of the rosary, and metaphorically for
prayers.
94 9-13 It is an ancient custom in Devon and Cornwall to deck
the porches of houses with boughs of sycamore and
hawthorn on May-day.-G.
95
95
96
97
98
1 Giving a maid a green gown was, in its purer sense,
throwing her on the ground sportively.-G.
1 Catullus, carmen 5, lines 5-6 :—
Nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux,
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
But, indeed, as Dr. Nott points out, the whole of the
concluding stanza of Herrick's lyric is in the same spirit
with this famous song of Catullus'.
8 Thronelet.-Diminutive of throne.'—G.

Bridget Herrick.-His little niece. See pedigree in the
note to p. 119, 1. 15.
8 Knap.-Snap; so in the Prayer Book, Psalm xlvi. 9:—
"He breaketh the bow, and knappeth the spear in
sunder."
272
NOTES.
page line
101
This and a few of the following poems would appear to
have been written at the time he was leaving London,
in the autumn of 1629, to enter upon the cure of Dean
Prior.
101 5 Quick.-The adjective, not the verb.
101 15 Shagg'd.-Shaggy.
101 23 Mystic fan.-The "mystica vannus Iacchi," of the 1st
Georgic of Virgil, line 166, borne about in the Bacchic
festival,
102 10 Cedar.-Oil of cedar used to preserve MSS.
poem "To Cedars :"_
"If 'mongst my many Poems I can see
One, only, worthy to be washed by thee."
And in Horace, Ars Poetica, lines 331-2:-
·
speramus carmina fingi
Posse linenda cedro ·
So in the
102 28 Smell of the lamp.-"Olet lucernam," Latin proverb.
106 5 Teemed.-Produced plentifully.
110 24 The deal. The portion dealt out, as in cards.
111 5 Maundy.-Gifts like those on Maundy Thursday."-P.
111 9 For and.—Obsolete for "also.”—P.
111 17 Reaming.—That is, I suppose, wool ready for "reaming,"
or being drawn out into threads or filaments.
112 4 Calamus.-The sweet calamus of Exodus xxx., 23, an
aromatic substance extracted from some reed. Dr.
Grosart says it is a gum from the Calamus Odoratus or
Aromaticus.
112 15 Prank.--Set off, trick, in an ostentatious sengę,
NOTES.
275
page line
Henry Lawes, son of William Lawes, was born at
Dinton, in Wiltshire, and baptised there January 1,
1595-6. He received his
his musical education from
Giovanni Coperio. In 1626 he became an epistler, and
afterwards one of the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal.
He set to music the poems of Milton, Lovelace, Carew,
Cartwright, Davenant, Waller, Shirley, Suckling, Kathe-
rine Philips, and some pieces of Ben Jonson's; but at
the present day he is chiefly remembered for having
composed, in 1634, the songs for "Comus." He published
several books of music, and amongst them his " Choice
Psalms," in 1648, for which Milton wrote the sonnet
addressed to him. At the Restoration he was rein-
stated in his Court appointments; and died October
21, 1662, and was buried in the cloister of Westminster
Abbey. He had a brother William, also a composer,
who was killed at the siege of Chester.
Herrick has this poem to him-
TO MR. HENRY LAWES, THE EXCELLENT
COMPOSER OF HIS LYRICS.
Touch but thy lyre, my Harry, and I hear
From thee some raptures of the rare Gotire:
Then if thy voice commingle with the string,
I hear in thee the rare Laniere to sing,
Or curious Wilson. Tell me, canst thou be
Less then Apollo, that usurp'st such three,
Three unto whom the whole world give applause?
Yet their three praises praise but one; that's Lawes.
It is difficult for us to understand the enormous praise
which his contemporaries delighted to shower upon him.
Many of the poets above named put forth on their
title-pages that their lyrics had been set by him, as if
it were an honour the most coveted. Mrs. Philips tells
him that "poets on the lower world look down, but
Lawes on them;" and Waller,
"Verse makes heroic virtue live;
But you can life to verses give:'
while Milton declares to him that
276
NOTES
page line
"Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory."
But the reason is not so far to seek. Lawes treated his
airs as if they were a development of the rhythm and
music of the lyric he proposed to set, and not as if the
words were merely an excuse for displaying some
melody of his own. In fact, in the words of the sonnet,
he
"First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas' ears, committing short and long."
To effect this, says a recent writer, "he employed a
kind of aria parlante,' a style of composition which,
if expressively sung, would cause as much gratification
to the cultivated hearer as the most ear-catching melody
would to the untrained listener." And so, despite
the blind condemnation of Burney and Hawkins, we
may yet discover that the sure judgment of Milton,
sure almost to inspiration, has already plucked out
the heart of the matter, and delivered us the precious
quality of the man in three words, "Thou honour'st
verse."
119 3 Reiterate.-This would seem to be a word of Herrick's
own making from Latin, "re" again, and "iter" а
walk; hence, to walk up and down many times.
119 15 Golden Cheapside.-Herrick was born in Cheapside,
within the parish of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, and there-
fore in a house which formerly occupied the site of one
in the present block of houses extending on the north
side of Cheapside from Foster Lane to Gutter Lane, or
in the opposite block on the south side reaching from
Old Change to the house now numbered 28. There is a
drawing in Crace the collection, in the Print Room of
the British Museum, Port : xxi. 1., by R. Treswell, dated
1585, that is some six years before Herrick was born, of
the west end of Cheapside, and showing several houses
in both of these blocks, so that it is just possible that
we may have in it a contemporary representation of
Herrick's birth-place. However, all this is a matter of
NOTES.
277
page line
Its
conjecture; but what we have with great certainty and
vivacity is a most charmingly quaint picture of the
surroundings among which he was born. In the south-
east corner of the drawing is shown the gothic gateway
leading to the great cathedral of St. Paul, with its
magnificent Norman nave, and choir of later work, the
whole east end of which was filled by one immense rose-
window of most wonderful and intricate design.
spire of copper, "red varnished," had been destroyed in
1561, and tlie cloister, painted with the Dance of Death,
pulled down by the Protector, the Duke of Somerset;
yet, hidden as it was on both sides by dwelling-houses,
it was still as stately a church as any in England. In
the churchyard, between the gateway, spoken of above,
and the north-east angle of the cathedral, stood Paul's
Cross, "which had been for many ages the most noted
and solemn place in the nation for the gravest divines
and greatest scholars to preach at."
At the extreme west end of Cheapside, where the
statue of Sir Robert Peel now stands, is shown in Tres-
well's drawing the Church of St. Michael le Querne, or,
more properly, "Ad Bladum," because of the corn-
market there, with its square, embattled tower, sur-
mounted by a bell-cot; and at the east end of the
church is "ye lytle cundit," with its pinnacles and per-
pendicular architecture, surrounded by numberless
water-flagons. It was called the little conduit to dis-
tinguish it from the great conduit which stood at the
other end of Cheapside, at the entrance to Bucklers-
bury.
The houses in this drawing are represented as all
gabled and of two storeys, and compared with the
buildings I have described are somewhat perfunctorily
done. I think we shall get a truer idea of the architec-
ture of the street if we turn to the print numbered 3,
in the same portfolio of the Crace collection, although
unfortunately it is taken from a point too far east to
show us the house of Nicholas Herrick. It is a view of
the state procession of Marie de Medici, mother of
Queen Henrietta Maria, when on a visit to England in
1638. It is inscribed, "Entree Royalle de la Reyne
mere du Roy tres-Chrestien dans la Ville de Londres,"
and shows a street of the most varied and picturesque
architecture.
The expression "golden," which Herrick uses of
278
NOTES.
page line
Cheapside, must refer, I think, to the gilding on the
great cross at the end of Wood Street, which appears to
have been a matter of much importance to the citizens
of the sixteenth century. Stow tells us "it was new
gilt over in the year 1522, against the coming of Charles
., emperor; in the year 1533, against the coronation
of Queen Anne; new burnished against the coronation
of Edward VI.; and again new gilt, 1554, against the
coming in of King Philip ;" and again, finally, at the
cominencement of the seventeenth century. The
Standard, a little to the east of the cross, was sur-
mounted by a figure which was probably also gilt.
Anthony Munday, speaking of this cross, tells us
that in the year 1596, "on the East side of the same
Cross, the Steps being taken thence, under the Image of
Christ's Resurrection defaced, was then set up a curious
wrought Tabernacle of grey Marble, and in the same, an
Alabaster Image of Diana, a Woman (for the most part
naked) and Water conveyed from the Thames, prilling
from her naked Breasts for a time; but the same is oft-
times dryed up, and now decayed." Herrick would
seem to have been thinking of this figure when he wrote
the lines-
A virgin's face she had; her dress
Was like a sprightly Spartaness.
A silver bow, with green silk strung,
Down from her comely shoulders hung:
And as she stood, the wanton air
Dandled the ringlets of her hair.
Her legs were such Diana shows,
When tucked up she a-hunting goes;
With buskins shortnèd to descry
The happy dawning of her thigh.
1 cannot better end this account of Cheapside than by
giving a concise account of Herrick's immediate family.
Nicholas Herrick married, in 1582, Julian Stone,
daughter to William Stone, and sister to Anne, Lady
Soame, wife of Sir Stephen Soame, knight, and Lord
Mayor of London in 1598. Hence Herrick's various
poems to the Stones and Soames. She died in 1629.
Of this marriage there were seven children, namely:-
1.-William, baptised November 24, 1585; died an
infant.
NOTES.
279
page line
2.-Martha, baptised January 22, 1586.
3.-Mercie, baptised December 22, 1586. She married
John Wingfield, of Brantham, in Suffolk, and had
by him three sons, Humphrey, John, and William,
and one daughter, Mercie. The following poems
Herrick severally addressed to his sister Mercie
and her husband.
TO MY DEAREST SISTER, M. MERCIE
HERRICK.
Whene'er I go, or whatsoe'er befalls
Me in mine age, or foreign funerals,
This blessing I will leave thee ere I go,
Prosper thy basket, and therein thy dough;
Feed on the paste of filberts, or else knead
And bake the flour of amber for thy bread;
Balm may thy tears drop, and thy springs run oil,
And everlasting harvest crown thy soil!
These I but wish for; but thyself shall see
The blessings fall in mellow time on thee.
TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW, MASTER JOHN
WINGFIELD.
For being comely, consonant, and free
To most of men, but most of all to me;
For so decreeing, that thy clothes' expense
Keeps still within a just circumference;
Then for contriving so to load thy board
As that the messes ne'er o'er-laid the Lord :
Next, for ordaining that thy words not swell
To any one unsober syllable;
These I could praise thee for, beyond another,
Wert thou a Wingfield only, not a brother.
4.-Thomas, baptised May 7, 1588, was placed by his
uncle and guardian, Sir William Herrick, with a
Mr. Massam, a merchant in London; but in 1610
retired into the country and settled on a small
farm, as appears from two letters from him to Sir
William Herrick. To him Herrick addresses the
poem of "A Country Life," p. 194. He married
and is supposed to have had a son Thomas. From
the following poem his wife's name would appear
to have been Elizabeth.
280
NOTES.
page line
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.
5.-Nicholas, baptised Ap il 22, 1589. He settled
early in life as a merchant in London, and traded
to the Levant seas. Hence it was that Herrick
wrote this poem to him
TO HIS BROTHER, NICHOLAS HERRICK,
What others have with cheapuess seen, and ease,
In varnished maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes, and those books, with all
Their large narrations, incanonical,
Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,
And tell'st to us what once they were and are
So that with bold truth thou canst now relate
This kingdom's fortune and that empire's fate ;
Canst talk to us of Sharon, where a spring
Of roses have an endless fiourishing;
Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them
Make known to us the new Jerusalem,
The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where
Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre :
So that the man that will but lay his ears,
As inapostate, to the thing he hears,
Shall by his hearing quickly come to see
The truth of travels less in books than thee.
He married Susanna, daughter of William Salter.
To her Herrick addressed two short poems. They
had three sons and four daughters, namely:-
i. Thomas, living 1634.
ii. Nicholas, died 1664.
iii. William.
iv. Bridget, on whom Herrick wrote the
strangely delightful poem on p. 97.
v. Anne.
vi. Susanna.
vii. Elizabeth, for whom Herrick composed the
following epitaph, since it cannot refer to
the sister-in-law above:-
NOTES.
281
page line
UPON HIS KINSWOMAN, MISTRESS ELIZABETHI
HERRICK.
Sweet virgin, that I do not set
The pillars up of weeping jet
Or mournful marble, let thy shade
Not wrathful seem, or fright the maid
Who hither at her wonted hours
Shall come to strew thy earth with flowers.
No, know, blest maid, when there's not one
Remainder left of brass or stone,
Thy living epitaph shall be,
Though lost in them, yet found in me.
Dear, in thy bed of roses, then,
Till this world shall dissolve as men,
Sleep, while we hide thee from the light,
Drawing the curtains round: Good night.
This next poem most probably refers to one of
Nicholas Herrick's sons, unless it was one of Thomas
Herrick's boys.
TO HIS NEPHEW, TO BE PROSPEROUS IN
HIS ART OF PAINTING.
On, as thou hast begun, brave youth, and get
The palm from Urbin, Titian, Tintoret,
Breugel, and Coxcie, and the works outdo
Of Holbein, and that mighty Rubens too.
So draw, and paint, as none may do the like,
No, not the glory of the world, Vandyke.
6.-Anne, baptised July 26, 1590.
7.-Robert, baptised August 24, 1591; buried October
15, 1674; the poet.
8.-William, born in 1593, "at Harry Campion's house
at Hampion." He died early, as would appear
from the following poem of Herrick's :-
TO HIS DYING BROTHER, MASTER WILLIAM
HERRICK.
Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon despatched is by the night as day.
282
NOTES.
page line
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kissed, sighed, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
When once true lovers take their last farewell.
What? shall we two our endless leaves take here
Without a sad look, or a solemn tear?
He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,
Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.
Pay we our vows and go, yet when we part,
Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart
Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none
To warm my breast, when thou my pulse art gone.
No, here I'll last, and walk, a harmless shade,
About this urn, wherein thy dust is laid,
To guard it so as nothing here shall be
Heavy, to hurt those sacred seeds of thee.
It now only remains for me to give Herrick's one
reference to his father, who made his will on the 7th
of November, 1592, and was buried on the 9th of the
same month. His death was caused by a fall from an
upper window of his own house, and the High
Almoner claimed his goods as being those of a suicide.
A compromise was ultimately arrived at. This is all
we know.
TO THE REVEREND SHADE OF HIS RELIGIOUS
FATHER.
That for seven lustres I did never come
To do the rites to thy religious tomb;
That neither hair was cut, or true tears shed
By me o'er thee, as justments to the dead,
Forgive, forgive me; since I did not know
Whether thy bones had here their rest or no.
But now 'tis known, behold, behold, I bring
Unto thy ghost the effusèd offering:
And look, what smallage, nightshade, cypress, yew,
Unto the shades have been, or now are due,
Here I devote; and something more than so,
I come to pay a debt of birth I owe.
Thou gavest me life, but mortal; for that one
Favour I'll make full satisfaction;
For my life mortal, rise from out thy hearse,
And take a life immortal from my verse.


NOTES.
283
page line
119 21 Disease.-Old French, des-aise, want of ease; so used
here in its original sense, to bring uneasiness. Coin-
pare "Thy daughter is dead; why diseasest thou the
master any further?"-Mark v. 35, Tyndale.
120 4 Junkels. Any sort of delicious fare to feast or nake
merry with.
120 14 Incurious.-Not enquiring; hence here, easily pleased.
123 6 Rage.-Poetical inspiration.—P.
123 17 A round. This must mean a health round, drank from
one to the other, as the loving-cup still is, where it
begins and ends with the same person.-G.
123 22 Instant.-Latin, instans, present.
126 7 Handsel.-Literally, the first instalment of a bargain;
hence, an earnest of good faith.
128 3 Paddocks.-Frogs. Bailey gives it as an Essex word.
128 5 Benison. -A blessing.
129 3 Continent.-Latin acc: continentem, holding together;
here, the apron of lawn into which Sappho gathered
her flowers.
120 8 Favonius.-The south-west wind, who was said to bring
in the spring and be married to Flora, the goddess of
flowers.
129 12 Proserpine was, likewise, gathering flowers when Pluto,
as the "Mystagogus Poeticus," 1648, tells us,
"carried
her away in his black coach to Hell.
130 5 Sir John.-i.e., the parson,
131
>>
See note to page 211 for an account of Sir Endymion
Porter.
131 10 Ingot.-A mass of unwrought gold or silver.

131 22 Soiled.—Manured.
284
NOTES.
page line
132 11 Great-eyed kine.-For Herrick, the great eyes of cattle
had a peculiar fascination Elsewhere he speaks of
"Lalage with cow-like eyes," an expression as true,
of certain Lalages, as it is absolutely charming.
132 14 Dew·laps.—The loose skin on the neck of cattle.
132 30 Quintels-Quintain, "a sport yet in use at marriages
in Shropshire, and elsewhere, in which they run a-tilt
on horseback with poles, against a thick post fixed in the
ground; and he who breaks most poles has the prize,
formerly a peacock, now a garland."-Bailey.
There is a quintain still standing on the green at
Offham, in Kent, consisting of an upright post on which
a cross-piece turns on a pivot. In this case, the players
being on horseback, would run a-tilt at one end of the
cross-piece, at which there was a broad board, and
endeavour to pass the post before a bag of sand,
suspended from the other end of the cross-piece, could
strike the tilter on the back of the head.
133 3 Shearing-feast.-Harvest-feast, from "shear," to reap.
133 5 Fox i' th' Hole.—An old English game: boys hopped on
one leg and beat one another with gloves or pieces of
leather tied at the end of strings.-G.
133 6 Mummeries.-Masqueradings, buffoonery.
133 13 Trammel Net.-A long net to catch great and small
fowl in the night.
133 14 Cockroad.-A net chiefly for the catching of woodcocks.
133 14 Glade.-A passage made in a wood by lopping off the
branches of trees along the way.
134
M
Ternary. An arrangement in threes.
184 12 The tower of Herrick's church of Dean Prior still
remains, but the bells are comparatively modern
(1734).-G.
134 14 Float.-Used in angling.-G.
NOTES.
285
page line
135 3 "Old religion" does not refer, I think, to the religion
of the Roman Catholic Church, of which Ben Jonson
was a member, but to that which was to Herrick a.
more living religion, the religion of immortal verse, for
the same kind of metaphor is employed throughout the
poem. Herrick was doubtless looking back and think-
ing of "those lyric feasts made at the Sun, the Dog,
the Triple Tun.'
"A
137 5 Draw-gloves." A sort of trifling game; the particulars
of which the learned have not yet discovered.'
"
137 14 Demophon.-Demophoön, for whom Phyllis killed her-
self, being deserted by him.
Phyllida Demophoon leto dedit, hospes amantem:
Ille neci causam præbuit, illa manum.
See Ovid's 2nd Epistle: from Phyllis to Demophoon,
137 24 Columbine.-The plant, "bearing pretty flowers of divers
colours."
138 1 Posies.- At the end of "The New Academy of Compli-
ments," 1681, is a collection of burlesque posies, or
mottos, "for rings or other things." For example:-
"I still muse on my dear Susan.'
>>
"I can't contain my love to Jane."
“The Lord above improve our love."
139 2 Protestant.-Latin, protestari; hence here, one who bears
witness to his lady's beauty and good name.
141
Herrick's epigrams are for the most part worthless, and
yet no one but Herrick could have written so surprising
an epigram as this.
147 6 To make loose gowns for mackerel.-Literally from Catul-
lus, xcv. 8. "Et laxas scombris sæpe dabunt tunicas.”
The "molestas" in Martial, 4, 87, 8, shows that Herrick
could not have had this epigram in his mind, although
it has the same title as his own, “ Ad Librum suum.'
147 8 Hoods.-The three-cornered bags used by grocers.
286
NOTES.
page line
149 4 Halcyon.-"A bird called a king's-fisher, which breeds
on the sea-shore about the winter-solstice; and for
about fourteen days, while the eggs are hatching, there
is no tempest or storm."
149 9 Rimmon.-2 Kings v. 18.
150 25 Holy Grist.-Holy grain.- G.
1512 Bruckelled.-Wet and dirty, begrimed.
151 3 Cockall.-The huckle or pastern bone of a sheep, used in
playing a game so called.
151 3 Circumbinds it.-Binds it round.
151 12 Fetuous.-Handsome, spruce.
151 17 Watchet.—A kind of pale blue colour.
152 6 Hatched.-As in pen and ink drawing.
152 22 Abbey-lubbers." A long lewd lither loiterer that might
work and would not," but frequented the abbeys and
cathedrals to beg.
153 17 Chives.-"The fine threads of flowers, or the little
knobs which grow on the top of those threads."
153 21 Shed.—Cocoon.-G.
154
In a little book entitled, "A Description of the King and
Queen of Fayries," etc., published in 1635, there is an
early version of this poem called, "A Description of
his Dyet." It would seem, therefore, that the present
series of Fairy poems was a development of this, and
consequently finished after 1635.
164 16 Chirring.-Chirping.
154 24 Kitling eyes.-Eyes like kittens, green.-G.
155 4 Cuckoo's spittle.-The white froth which encloses the
larva of the cicàda spumarià.—G.
NOTES.
287
page line
155
155
5 Fuz-ball.-Puff-ball or fungus.-G.
9 Sagg.-Used for the sake of the rhyme instead of the
participle of the verb to sagg, to hang down, as
oppressed with weight.
155 10 Bestrutted.-Descriptive of the laden bee labouring
along, with legs stuck out, like "struts" or props.-G.
156
156
8 Mickle.-Much.
7 Souce.-A pickle for pickling meat.
156 11 Huckson.-Query, for Hucksheen, the hock.
156 13 Chit.-Seed is said to chit when it first shoots its
small roots into the earth.
156 19 Orts.-Fragments, leavings.
157 14 Compare Horace, 4th satire of the 1st book, line 34 :-
"Foenum habet in cornu; longe fuge." Cows that are
wild and dangerous have still sometimes a tuft of hay
round the tip of one horn to forewarn all comers.-G.
157 17 Peltish.-Irritable, from pelt, a rage, passion.
158
158
158
(
Which put her ladyship into a horrid pelt."
-Unnatural Brother.
1 Redeem.-Reach again.
3 Lemster Ore.-Leominster wool :-"As for the Wooll, in
this County, [Herefordshire,] it is best known to the
honour thereof by the name of Lempster Ore, being
absolutely the finest in this County, and indeed in all
England."-Fuller.-G.
12 Ceston.-Cestus.
158 23 Ficks.-This word must mean spades, from the French
"picque;" or is it after all only another term for
diamonds?
159
159
2 Toadstones.-The supposed jewel in a toad's head.
4 Whit-flaws.-Whitlows.
159 12 Enfriezed throughout with.—i.e., surround by a frieze of.
288
NOTES.
page line
159 15-6 I can offer no satisfactory explanation of this passage.
159 20 Corrupted wood.-Here, wood that is
that is phosphor-
escent.-G.
159 28 Errors.-Latin, errare; wanderings.
160 13 Comply.-Latin, complere, fill on all sides, surround.
160 16 Spinner's.-Spider's.
161
6 This flax is spun.-i.e., this matter is ended.-G.
163 23 St. Phyllis.-The Phyllis, as above, who killed herself,
for Demophoön, sainted.
163 24 St. Iphis.-A youth of Cyprus, who hung himself
because his love for Anaxarete was not returned,
likewise sainted. "These saints must be taken as
representatives of maids and youths who have died for
love."
168
166
Mildmay, Earl of Westmorland.-Mildmay Fane, the
author of a volume of poems called "Otia Sacra," 1648.
He died 1666.
9 Malkin.-Cloth usually wetted and attached to a pole
to clean out a baker's oven-floor. In Devon, a cloth,
or clout generally.-G.
168 20 Prank.—Trick, adorn.
166 21 Fill-hor e-From "fill," a form of thill, the beam or
draught-tree of a cart or waggon; hence, a horse that
is put under the thill.
167
9 Frumenty.-A dish made of hulled wheat boiled in
milk, with sugar, spice, etc.
167 15 Fans.-Winnowing fans.
168
169
5 Temper.-Latin, temperantia, moderation.
See the collection of charms in Ajibrey's "Miscellanies
under the heading of "Magick; where you will find a
reference to Sir William Soame and his Lady. Herrick
NOTES.
289
page line
-
has an
epigram" addressed "To his honoured kins-
man, Sir William Soame."
176 Ben Jonson died August 6, 1637, and was buried in an up-
right position, in the north aisle of Westminster Abbey.
177 7 Clusters.-i.e., of grapes, put for wine.
179
W
Set to music by William Lawes in John Playford's "Select
Musicall Ayres," 1652, second book, p. 25.
182 14 Purfling.-French, pourfiler d'or, to purfle, tinsell, or
overcast with gold thread, etc. Cotgrave; hence,
embroidering.
182 14 Margents.-Margins.
183 9 Linus.-A mythical poet. The accounts of him are very
conflicting. According to one, he was the son of Apollo
and Terpsichore, and taught Orpheus and Hercules the
use of the lyre, by the latter of whom he was killed.
184 1 Evadnes.-Evadne, daughter of Iphis, who slighted the
attentions of Apollo; and so used here symbolically
of all young women who are not to be caught by the
mouse-trap of "the lofty rhyme.
"
184 14 Determines.-Latin, determinare, limits.
185
Frances, daughter of Sir Clipsby Crewe, and Jane his
wife, was born at Crewe, 27th July 1631: died 4th of
February 1637-8, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey.-G.
186 12 Teending.-Anglo-Saxon, tendan; tinding, kindling.
190 2 Sock.-The "soccus," a kind of low-heeled light shoe
worn by the comic actors of classic times; hence, used
figuratively for comedy.
190 2 Buskin. -The Latin "cothurnus," a boot reaching to the
knee and worn in the classic tragedies; used in a
similar manner for tragedy,
190 7 Temper.-Moderation, as before.
190 13 Artless.-i.e., without art.
190 16 The "Alchymist" was first played in 1810, "The New
Inn "was driven from the stage in 1629. I cannot find
any record that the "Alchymist" was so used.
. 191 1 Cynthius.-A surname of Apollo.
262
290
NOTES.
page line
191 14 Compare the 144th line of Ovid's "Remedia Amoris:"-
"Cedit amor rebus; res age, tutus eris."
192 4 He mentions his maid Prue several times. There is an
epitaph upon her, and also this delightful little poem:-
UPON PRUDENCE BALDWIN, HER SICKNESS.
Prue, my dearest maid, is sick,
Almost to be lunatic:
Esculapius come and bring
Means for her recovering,
And a gallant cock shall be
Offered up by her to thee.
192 5 Wort,-A plant of the cabbage kind.
192 13 Batten.-Rear, fatten.
194 17 Stint.-Proportions, quantity.
194 24 Brass.-Money, now a vulgarism,
194 26 Cocker.-Pamper.
195 4 Neat.-Elegant.
196 4 Compare Leviticus, chap. ii., and Mark ix., 49.-G.
196 19-20 Compare Horace, 3rd Ode of the first book, lines 9-12 :—
Illi robur et aes triplex
Circa pectus erat qui fragilem truci
Commisit pelago ratem
Primus,
• •
197 12 Originally quoted by Aristotle (Ethics i. 11, and Rhetoric
iii., 11, 2) from Simonides: traced back to Pythagoras.
-G.
198 1 'Size.-Assize; standard, measure of life.
198 19-20 Compare Hamlet, Act i. scene 3-"To thine own
self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day,
thou canst not then be false to any man.”
200 1 Esteem.-Latin, aestimare, to value; hence, ability to
value.
204
John Wickes.-This must be John Weekes, prebend of
Bristol, bachelor of divinity of Cambridge, and some-
time chaplain to Archbishop Laud. In 1643 he
was created a doctor of divinity of Oxford. At that
NOTES.
291
page line
time he was a preacher there, either before the
king or parliament. Afterwards he was made
Dean of St. Burian, in Cornwall. Dr. Weekes
attended His Majesty in Cornwall during some part
of the wars; and Herrick has a poem " to the King, upon
his coming with his Army into the West," which was in
August 1644, when Charles I. pursued Essex into Corn-
wall and forced him to capitulate. Dr. Weekes suffered
much for the royal cause; but at the Restoration he
was reinstated in those offices from which he had been
ejected. The only personal touch we have of him is that
of Anthony à Wood's, who describes him as "a jocular
person." The poem on p. 248 addressed to him, seems
to imply that Herrick, after his ejectment, was much
beholden to the charity of this, his "peculiar friend."
See Wood's "Fasti" for 1643, and John Walker's "Suffer-
ings of the Clergy," 1714, p. 391, and elsewhere.
204 1-6 Compare Horace, first four lines of Ode 14, book 2.
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
Rugis et instanti senectae
Afferet indomitaeque morti.
204 9-12 Compare lines 21-4 of the same ode.
Linquenda tellus et domus et placens
Uxor, neque harum quas colis arborum
Te praeter invisas cupressos,
Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.
205 2 Repullulate.-Latin, repullulare, to bud again.
205 5-6 Compare lines 15-6 of the 7th Ode of the 4th book of
Horace.
quo dives Tullus et Ancus
Pulvis et umbra sumus.
205 19 Compare Revelations ii., 17:-"To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give
him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it."
205 21-2 Brave Baiae.-Compare line 83 of the 1st Epistle of the
1st Book of Horace :—“ Baiis amoenis."
292
NOTES.
page line
206 6 Candle bawdery.—Obscene words and figures made with
candle smoke, not unfrequently met with in the
habitations of the vulgar.-G.
206 20 Circular.-Is this the Horatian
"totus teres atque
rotundus," Sat. 2, 7, 86.-i.e., as implying perfection ?
207 3 Ptisick.-Phthisick, a consumption of the whole body,
arising from an ulceration of the lungs, etc.
207 8 Baucis.-The "Pannucea Baucis," perhaps, of Persius,
iv. 21.
207 17 Chine.-Backbone.
207 19 Iülus.-Ascanius, the son of Æneas; figuratively for an
heir.
207 22-3 Herrick is doubtless referring to the following poem
of his :-
THE LILY IN A CRYSTAL.
You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn :
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Tombed in a crystal stone,
More fair in this transparent case
Than when it grew alone,
And had but single grace.
You see how cream but naked is,
Nor dances in the eye
Without a strawberry;
Or some fine tincture, like to this,
Which draws the sight thereto,
More by that wantoning with it
Than when the paler hue
No mixture did admit.
You see how amber through the streams
More gently strokes the sight
With some concealed delight
Than when he darts his radiant beams
Into the boundless air;
Where either too much light his worth
Doth all at once impair,
Or set it little forth.
NOTES.
293
page line
Put purple grapes or cherries in-
To glass, and they will send
More beauty to commend
Them, from that clean and subtile skin,
Than if they naked stood,
And had no other pride at all
But their own flesh and blood,
And tinctures natural.
Thus lily, rose, grape, cherry, cream,
And strawberry do stir
More love, when they transfer
A weak, a soft, a broken beam,
Than if they should discover
At full their proper excellence,
Without some scene cast over,
To juggle with the sense.
Thus let this crystalled lily be
A rule, how far to teach
Your nakedness must reach;
And that no further than we see
Those glaring colours laid
By art's wise hand, but to this end
They should obey a shade,
Lest they too far extend.
So though you're white as swan or snow,
And have the power to move
A world of men to love;
Yet, when your lawns and silks shall flow,
And that white cloud divide
Into a doubtful twilight, then,
Then will your hidden pride
Raise greater fires in men.
208 3-6 Reference (but inaccurate) to Iliad iii.-G.
209 6 Pith.-Strength.
209 17 Pricket.-A young male deer of two years old, beginning
to put forth its horns.
210 7 Burr.-The rough, prickly covering of the seeds of certain
plants, as of the burdock or the chestnut.
211
Endymion Porter seems to have had only one brother,
Giles, who "died at Oxford in the service of Charles I.,
294
NOTES.
page line
unmarried." It is probable, therefore, that his death
took place between 1642-6.
Sir Endymion Porter was born in 1587, it is said in the
Manor-house of Aston-sub Edge, in Gloucestershire. He
passed the early years of his life in Spain in the service
of Olivares; and was employed by Prince Charles and
Buckingham into that country on matters connected
with the Spanish marriage. He married Olive, daughter
of John, first Lord Butler, by whom he had several
children. There is a famous family-piece of him, his
wife, and three of his sons, by Van Dyck, as well as
several other portraits of him. During the Civil War he
was very active in secret services for Charles I.
"
To us, his chief interest lies in his appreciation of Art
and Letters. Herrick calls him "the patron of poets,"
and speaks of "the state of poets" attending him.
Dekker dedicates his "Dream" to him, Davenant a
play, Randolph a poem. Nor was it only poetry that he
had a care for. I find in Vander Doort's catalogue of
Charles I.'s collection, among the Ashmolean MSS.,
many entries relating to him. For example: a picture
of Diana and Acteon by Giorgione, bought by the king
of Mr. Endymion Porter;' "a black brass little statue,
where little David overcomes ye great Goliath, bought
by Mr. Endymion Porter for ye king;" as well
as other pictures, ivories, etc., together with a piece of
silver-work, a gift of his to the king,,But he extended
his patronage beyond the Fine Arts. A Wood tells us
that to encourage Mr. Rob. Dover's Olympic games upon
the Cotswold Hills, he gave him some of the king's old
clothes, with a hat and feather and ruff, purposely to
grace him, and consequently the solemnity. He died
in 1649, though one authority says he was then sixty-five
years of age.
For want of more space and opportunity, I have been
forced to leave this note in its present unsatisfactory
condition; but it is much to be hoped that before long
we may have an exhaustive account of this most inter-
esting person. After the delightful fashion of the
Athena Oxoniensis, he is there called "a great man
and beloved by two kings," "and of a most generous
spirit." But whatever he himself may have been, his
surroundings are much too valuable not to be
chronicled.
NOTES.
295
page line
211 5-7 Compare Catullus, carmen 5, line 4 :—
Soles occidere et redire possunt.
This first stanza is evidently supposed to be addressed
by Herrick to himself; and not by Porter to Herrick, as
Dr. Grosart suggests.
214 3 Fail agrees with the nearest noun, as in Shakespeare.-G.
214 15 Flock.-Latin, floccus, a lock of wool.
215 7 The voice's daughter.-Echo.
215 10 Fore-fend.-Forbid.
215 10 Pales.-The goddess of sheepfolds and pastures among
the Romans.
217
His Paternal Country.-i.e., London.
220 10 Creeking.-This would seem to be a provincial form of
'cackling.'
220 24 Miching.—To lie hid, to skulk; to retire or shrink from
view.
221 1 A Trasy." His spaniel."-Herrick.
in the Hesperides a little verse
Tracie."
223 5 Spars.-Rafters.
There is elsewhere
Upon his Spaniell
223 22 Unchipped.-To chip bread was to cut it into slices.
223 22 Unfead.-There was a verb "to flay" used in old cookery,
meaning to mix.
224 7 Purslane.-A plant of the genus Portulaca, formerly
much used in salads.
227 7 Beadsman.-A man employed in praying, generally for
another. In this sense the word was used in former
times at the conclusion of petitions or letters to great
men as we now use "servant" or "humble servant."
227 10 Compare Ecclesiastes, chap. 12, v. 5.-" And the grass-
hopper shall be a burden.
"
296
NOTES.
page line
227 12 Termly.-Occurring every term. Perhaps Herrick is
alluding here to the terms kept in a hospital or college
for poor persons; and by Beadsman, above, he is
implying the almsmen of such a college, who would,
before the Reformation, have prayed for the soul of
their founder.
231 3 The Court of Requests was a court of equity for the
relief of such persons as addressed His Majesty by
supplication, abolished by stat. 16 and 17, Car. I.
231 21 Great Platonic year." A revolution of certain thousand
years, when all things should return into their former
estate, and he (Plato) be teaching again in his school,
as when he delivered this opinion."-Sir Thomas
Browne.
232 11 Candour.-Latin candidus, glistening whiteness.
236 4-6 At the yearly processions or perambulations, when
they beat the boundaries of the parish, the Gospel
was read at certain trees, thence called 'Gospel
trees."
237 13 Artless.-Unskilful.
238 7.-i.e., when the number of the comforters present is more
than the number of true friends amongst them.
241 2 Compare Psalm cxxxvii., v. 2.—“We hanged our harps
upon the willows."
241 5-6 Amphion "learned his musick of Mercury, and
received his lute from him by the force of his musick
he caused the stones to follow him with which the
walls of Thebes were built."
245 1 Drooping West.-Herrick's references to Devonshire are
somewhat contradictory. For example, this poem :—
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.
NOTES.
297
page line
Yet, justly too, I must confess,
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loathed so much-
as against these lines:-
Before I went
To banishment
Into the loathed West,
I could rehearse
A lyric verse,
And speak it with the best.
But time, ah me!
Has laid, I see,
My organ fast asleep :
And turned my voice
Into the noise
Of those that sit and weep.
But as far as his poetry was concerned, it could not
have been an unmixed evil.
248 8 Over-leaven. - Leaven was commonly a piece of dough
salted and soured, to ferment and relish the whole
lump as Dr. Grosart points out, the expression would
seem to refer to a further stage of acetous or vinegary
fermentation.
250 4 Pyramides.-Latin, pyramides; pyramid, used here for
monument.
251 14 Compare Horace, Book i., Ode 1, last line :-
Cat
(C
"Sublimi feriam sidera vertice."
252 Set to music by Henry Lawes, in the 1st book of his
Ayres and Dialogues," 1653, p. 19. It is called there,
"To his mistress objecting his age.'
255 5 Effusion.-Latin plural, effusiones, a pouring forth;
libations.
257
Sir Edward Giles, Knight, was born at Bowdon, in the
parish of Totnes, Devonshire, about 1580. While yet but
young, he ravelled beyond the seas; and the Low-
298
NOTES.
page line
Countries at that time being the scene of war, and the
Academy of Military discipline, he entered himself a
soldier, and trailed a pike in Her Majesty's service, Queen
Elizabeth of glorious memory, there for several years
together. Near upon, or soon after her decease, he re-
turned into England; and being now an accomplished
gentleman, he was taken notice of at court; and though
still young, and his father living, yet had the honour of
knighthood conferred upon him by King James I., at
the time of his coronation, 1604. At his father's
death, Sir Edward coming full and whole into a fair
and flourishing estate, lived in great reputation at
Bowdon; and by King James, in the eleventh year of his
reign, he had the whole power of the county of Devon
put into his hands. He was always returned one of the
Burgesses to serve the town of Totnes in Parliament,
in every election during the reign of King James I.
and King Charles I., unto the time of his death. He
married Mary, the daughter and sole heir of Edmund
Drew of Haine, relict of Walter Northcot of Uton,
Esq.; but having no issue by her, he endeavoured to
preserve his name and family by his uncle's son. Ho
settled upon him in his lifetime the Barton of
Bowdon, and the manor of Ashprington; and
moving his own family from thence to make way for
him, he retired to his house at Dean Prior, where he
spent the remainder of his days; and departing this
mortal life in the year of our Lord God 1637, he was
interred December 28th, in the south aisle belonging
to that Parish Church; where in the wall over the
Chancel door is erected to his memory and his lady's,
who was there buried also January 26th, 1642, a very
fair monument.
ro-
So far I have condensed from John Prince's Worthies
of Devon, 1701, p. 333; and at this length, because any-
thing which throws light on Herrick's surroundings at
Dean Prior is worthy of our attention, if we wish to
study his poetry. But the most valuable part of this
account of Sir Edward Giles is where, after describing
the Giles monument as consisting of a statue of the
defunct cut in stone, clothed in armour richly gilded,
kneeling before a desk with his hand erect in devout
posture, and on the other side of the desk a like kneeling
figure of his lady in mourning habit, and after quoting
the epitaph, Prince goes on to tell us that "the Author of
NOTES.
299
this Epitaph was Mr. Herrick, at that time Vicar of the
Parish of Dean Prior, and very Aged; but in his Youth
he had been an eminent Poet, as his printed Works
declare." As the epitaph could not have been written
until after Lady Giles' death in 1642, and as we are
here told that Herrick was "very aged" when he wrote it,
the reasonable conclusion is that it was not composed
till after Herrick's return to Dean Prior in 1662. Hence,
this is the only poem of his we have which was written,
so far as we know, after the publication of the
Hesperides.
POOR ROBIN'S ALMANACK.
As there is a tradition that Herrick was the author of Poor
Robin's Almanack, and as no editor of Herrick has as yet
reprinted any portion of these humorous calendars, the present
seems a good opportunity for giving a few examples of the prose
and verse contained in them.
The earliest which the British Museum possesses is that for
the year 1664. It is entitled :-“An Almanack after a New
Fashion; written by Poor Robin, Knight of the Burnt-Island,
a well-willer to the Mathematicks."
This is set against the Calendar for February :-
"How soon our life doth pass and slide away?
Un-born, full grown, and buried in a day.
All as a rose that now unswadelèd
From her green bands, displayes her virgin-head.
Straight to the Sun her lovely breast exposes,
Straight all disrob'd, her sweets and verdure loses :
Even so our life like to this fading flower
Doth spring, bud, blossom, wither in an hower.
Each stealing moment on it makes a prey,
Steals away part, till all is stole away."
"
These are a couple of the "observations" for the same month:-
"We may expect some showers of rain either this month
or the next, or the next after that, or else we shall have a
very dry spring."
"The twenty seventh day of this month died Cardinal
Mazarine, and if you would know the reason why he died
then, I answer it was because he could live no longer."
300
NOTES.
There is something in this ridiculous "Ode to the Clouds
which strongly suggests Herrick having a joke :-
"What ayles ye, O ye clouds, or why alas
Do ye thus costive lye? what destiny
Hath bound your buckets up in pale face't brass,
Your Danaids tubs bespect with holes whereby
You crumble rain, can ye our misery
Behold with face so dry, with eyes hide bound?
Can ye thus march the blithsome sun around,
And sweat no swelling fatness on the meager ground?
Ye are the world's great mud-wall, should defend
From the besieging Sun this circled Town,
Whilest he his flakes of sprightful flame doth send,
And in straight lines distreaks his wild-fire down,
Shedding his flaming hairs from's burning crown:
But ye in Christal jellys candyed lie,
Like alabaster floor, or ivory,
And with your starchy waves stiffen the liquid sky."
The next of these Almanacks which the museum possesses is
for the year 1667; from which I transcribe this, in its way,
quite perfect couplet :-
When the Rain raineth and the Goose winketh,
Little wots the Gosling what the Goose thinketh."
MARSHALL'S PORTRAIT OF HERRICK.
A last word on William Marshall's frontispiece to the original
edition of the Hesperides, with its portrait of Herrick. Some of
Marshall's portraits are extremely quaint and pleasing, as that
of Donne, when young: but the Herrick frontispiece is
Marshall at his worst. Without criticising it as a portrait,
I would point out the monstrous proportions of the head and
neck considered in relation to the face, and the entire absence of
knowledge, either anatomical or artistic, in the drawing of the
neck and pectoral muscles. Marshall's portrait of Francis
Bacon is a good example of what a commonplace person he
could make of one of the most grandly presenced of men.
But the most scathing judgment upon him is that of Milton's.
NOTES.
301
After Marshall had engraved his portrait for the 1645 edition of
his poems, Milton gave him the following epigram to engrave
under it, which he did innocently enough, for he understood
Greek as little as he understood drawing:-
IN EFFIGIEI EJUS SCULPTOREM.
Αμαθεί γεγράφθαι χειρὶ τήνδε μὲν εἰκόνα
Φαίης τάχ' ἄν, πρὸς εἶδος αὐτοφυές βλεπων.
Τὸν δ᾽ ἐκτυπωτὸν οὐκ ἐπιγνόντες, φίλοι,
Γελᾶτε φαύλου δυσμίμημα ζωγράφον.
Which Professor Masson translates thus :-
That an unskilful hand had carved this print
You'd say at once, seeing the living face;
But, finding here no jot of me, my friends,
Laugh at the wretched artist's mis-attempt.
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