Produced by Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ROBERT HERRICK THE HESPERIDES & NOBLE NUMBERS: EDITED BY ALFRED POLLARD WITH A PREFACE BY A. C. SWINBURNE VOL. I. _REVISED EDITION_ [Illustration] LONDON: NEW YORK: LAWRENCE & BULLEN, LTD., CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 1898. 1898. Transcriber's Note: Original spelling and punctuation has been retained. ^ indicates 'superscript' within the text. Obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note, however additional corrections have been recorded in the Transcriber's Endnotes at the end each volume. EDITOR'S NOTE. In this edition of Herrick quotation is for the first time facilitated by the poems being numbered according to their order in the original edition. This numbering has rendered it possible to print those Epigrams, which successive editors have joined in deploring, in a detachable Appendix, their place in the original being indicated by the numeration. It remains to be added that the footnotes in this edition are intended to explain, as unobtrusively as possible, difficulties of phrase or allusion which might conceivably hinder the understanding of Herrick's meaning. In the longer Notes at the end of each volume earlier versions of some important poems are printed from manuscripts at the British Museum, and an endeavour has been made to extend the list of Herrick's debts to classical sources, and to identify some of his friends who have hitherto escaped research. An editor is always apt to mention his predecessors rather for blame than praise, and I therefore take this opportunity of acknowledging my general indebtedness to the pioneer work of Mr. Hazlitt and Dr. Grosart, upon whose foundations all editors of Herrick must necessarily build. ALFRED W. POLLARD. PREFACE. It is singular that the first great age of English lyric poetry should have been also the one great age of English dramatic poetry: but it is hardly less singular that the lyric school should have advanced as steadily as the dramatic school declined from the promise of its dawn. Born with Marlowe, it rose at once with Shakespeare to heights inaccessible before and since and for ever, to sink through bright gradations of glorious decline to its final and beautiful sunset in Shirley: but the lyrical record that begins with the author of "Euphues" and "Endymion" grows fuller if not brighter through a whole chain of constellations till it culminates in the crowning star of Herrick. Shakespeare's last song, the exquisite and magnificent overture to "The Two Noble Kinsmen," is hardly so limpid in its flow, so liquid in its melody, as the two great songs in "Valentinian": but Herrick, our last poet of that incomparable age or generation, has matched them again and again. As a creative and inventive singer, he surpasses all his rivals in quantity of good work; in quality of spontaneous instinct and melodious inspiration he reminds us, by frequent and flawless evidence, who above all others must beyond all doubt have been his first master and his first model in lyric poetry--the author of "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love". The last of his line, he is and will probably be always the first in rank and station of English song-writers. We have only to remember how rare it is to find a perfect song, good to read and good to sing, combining the merits of Coleridge and Shelley with the capabilities of Tommy Moore and Haynes Bayly, to appreciate the unique and unapproachable excellence of Herrick. The lyrist who wished to be a butterfly, the lyrist who fled or flew to a lone vale at the hour (whatever hour it may be) "when stars are weeping," have left behind them such stuff as may be sung, but certainly cannot be read and endured by any one with an ear for verse. The author of the Ode on France and the author of the Ode to the West Wind have left us hardly more than a song a-piece which has been found fit for setting to music: and, lovely as they are, the fame of their authors does not mainly depend on the song of Glycine or the song of which Leigh Hunt so justly and so critically said that Beaumont and Fletcher never wrote anything of the kind more lovely. Herrick, of course, lives simply by virtue of his songs; his more ambitious or pretentious lyrics are merely magnified and prolonged and elaborated songs. Elegy or litany, epicede or epithalamium, his work is always a song-writer's; nothing more, but nothing less, than the work of the greatest song-writer--as surely as Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist--ever born of English race. The apparent or external variety of his versification is, I should suppose, incomparable; but by some happy tact or instinct he was too naturally unambitious to attempt, like Jonson, a flight in the wake of Pindar. He knew what he could not do: a rare and invaluable gift. Born a blackbird or a thrush, he did not take himself (or try) to be a nightingale. It has often been objected that he did mistake himself for a sacred poet: and it cannot be denied that his sacred verse at its worst is as offensive as his secular verse at its worst; nor can it be denied that no severer sentence of condemnation can be passed upon any poet's work. But neither Herbert nor Crashaw could have bettered such a divinely beautiful triplet as this:-- "We see Him come, and know Him ours, Who with His sunshine and His showers Turns all the patient ground to flowers". That is worthy of Miss Rossetti herself: and praise of such work can go no higher. But even such exquisite touches or tones of colour may be too often repeated in fainter shades or more glaring notes of assiduous and facile reiteration. The sturdy student who tackles his Herrick as a schoolboy is expected to tackle his Horace, in a spirit of pertinacious and stolid straightforwardness, will probably find himself before long so nauseated by the incessant inhalation of spices and flowers, condiments and kisses, that if a musk-rat had run over the page it could hardly be less endurable to the physical than it is to the spiritual stomach. The fantastic and the brutal blemishes which deform and deface the loveliness of his incomparable genius are hardly so damaging to his fame as his general monotony of matter and of manner. It was doubtless in order to relieve this saccharine and "mellisonant" monotony that he thought fit to intersperse these interminable droppings of natural or artificial perfume with others of the rankest and most intolerable odour: but a diet of alternate sweetmeats and emetics is for the average of eaters and drinkers no less unpalatable than unwholesome. It is useless and thankless to enlarge on such faults or such defects, as it would be useless and senseless to ignore. But how to enlarge, to expatiate, to insist on the charm of Herrick at his best--a charm so incomparable and so inimitable that even English poetry can boast of nothing quite like it or worthy to be named after it--the most appreciative reader will be the slowest to affirm or imagine that he can conjecture. This, however, he will hardly fail to remark: that Herrick, like most if not all other lyric poets, is not best known by his best work. If we may judge by frequency of quotation or of reference, the ballad of the ride from Ghent to Aix is a far more popular, more generally admired and accredited specimen of Mr. Browning's work than "The Last Ride Together"--and "The Lost Leader" than "The Lost Mistress". Yet the superiority of the less-popular poem is in either case beyond all question or comparison: in depth and in glow of spirit and of harmony, in truth and charm of thought and word, undeniable and indescribable. No two men of genius were ever more unlike than the authors of "Paracelsus" and "Hesperides": and yet it is as true of Herrick as of Browning that his best is not always his best-known work. Everyone knows the song, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"; few, I fear, by comparison, know the yet sweeter and better song, "Ye have been fresh and green". The general monotony of style and motive which fatigues and irritates his too-persevering reader is here and there relieved by a change of key which anticipates the note of a later and very different lyric school. The brilliant simplicity and pointed grace of the three stanzas to Ånone ("What conscience, say, is it in thee") recall the lyrists of the Restoration in their cleanlier and happier mood. And in the very fine epigram headed by the words "Devotion makes the Deity" he has expressed for once a really high and deep thought in words of really noble and severe propriety. His "Mad Maid's Song," again, can only be compared with Blake's; which has more of passionate imagination, if less of pathetic sincerity. A. C. SWINBURNE. LIFE OF HERRICK. Of the lives of many poets we know too much; of some few too little. Lovers of Herrick are almost ideally fortunate. Just such a bare outline of his life has come down to us as is sufficient to explain the allusions in his poems, and, on the other hand, there is no temptation to substitute chatter about his relations with Julia and Dianeme for enjoyment of his delightful verse. The recital of the bare outline need detain us but a few minutes: only the least imaginative of readers will have any difficulty in filling it in from the poems themselves. From early in the fourteenth century onwards we hear of the family of Eyrick or Herrick at Stretton, in Leicestershire. At the beginning of the sixteenth century we find a branch of it settled in Leicester itself, where John Eyrick, the poet's grandfather, was admitted a freeman in 1535, and afterwards acted as Mayor. This John's second son, Nicholas, migrated to London, became a goldsmith in Wood Street, Cheapside, and, according to a licence issued by the Bishop of London, December 8, 1582, married Julian, daughter of William Stone, sister of Anne, wife of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. The marriage was not unfruitful. A William[A] Herrick was baptized at St. Vedast's, Foster Lane, November 24, 1585; Martha, January 22, 1586; Mercy, December 22, 1586; Thomas, May 7, 1588; Nicholas, April 22, 1589; Anne, July 26, 1590; and Robert himself, August 24, 1591. [A] A second William is said to have been born, posthumously, in "Harry Campion's house at Hampton," in 1593. Fifteen months after the poet's birth, on November 7, 1592, Nicholas Herrick made his will, estimating his property as worth Â£3000, and devising it, as to one-third to his wife, and as to the other two-thirds to his children in equal shares. In the will he described himself as "of perfect memorye in sowle, but sicke in bodye". Two days after its execution he was buried, having died, not from disease, but from a fall from an upper window. His death had so much the appearance of self-destruction that Â£220 had to be paid to the High Almoner, Dr. Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, in satisfaction of his official claim to the goods and chattels of suicides. Herrick's biographers have not failed to vituperate the Bishop for his avarice, but dues allowed by law are hardly to be abandoned because a baby of fifteen months is destined to become a brilliant poet, and no other exceptional circumstances are alleged. The estate of Nicholas Herrick could the better afford the fine inasmuch as it realized Â£2000 more than was expected. By the will Robert and William Herrick were appointed "overseers," or trustees for the children. The former was the poet's godfather, and in his will of 1617 left him Â£5. To William Herrick, then recently knighted for his services as goldsmith, jeweller, and moneylender to James I., the young Robert was apprenticed for ten years, September 25, 1607. An allusion to "beloved Westminster," in his _Tears to Thamesis_, has been taken to refer to Westminster school, and alleged as proof that he was educated there. Dr. Grosart even presses the mention of Richmond, Kingston, and Hampton Court to support a conjecture that Herrick may have travelled up and down to school from Hampton. If so, one wonders what his headmaster had to say to the "soft-smooth virgins, for our chaste disport" by whom he was accompanied. But the references in the poem are surely to his courtier-life in London, and after his father's death the apprenticeship to his uncle in 1607 is the first fact in his life of which we can be sure. In 1607, Herrick was fifteen, and, even if we conjecture that he may have been allowed to remain at school some little time after his apprenticeship nominally began, he must have served his uncle for five or six years. Sir William had himself been bound apprentice in a similar way to the poet's father, and we have no evidence that he exacted any premium. At any rate, when in 1614, his nephew, then of age, desired to leave the business and go to Cambridge, the ten years' apprenticeship did not stand in his way, and he entered as a Fellow Commoner at St. John's. His uncle plainly still managed his affairs, for an amusing series of fourteen letters has been preserved at Beaumanor, until lately the seat of Sir William's descendants, in which the poet asks sometimes for payment of a quarterly stipend of Â£10, sometimes for a formal loan, sometimes for the help of his avuncular MÃ¦cenas. It seems a fair inference from this variety of requests that, since Herrick's share of his father's property could hardly have yielded a yearly income of Â£40, he was allowed to draw on his capital for this sum, but that his uncle and Lady Herrick occasionally made him small presents, which may account for his tone of dependence. The quarterly stipend was paid through various booksellers, but irregularly, so that the poor poet was frequently reduced to great straits, though Â£40 a-year (Â£200 of our money) was no bad allowance. After two years he migrated from St. John's to Trinity Hall, to study law and curtail his expenses. He took his Bachelor's degree from there in January, 1617, and his Master's in 1620. The fourteen letters show that he had prepared himself for University life by cultivating a very florid prose style which frequently runs into decasyllabics, perhaps a result of a study of the dramatists. Sir William Herrick is sometimes addressed in them as his most "careful" uncle, but at the time of his migration the poet speaks of his "ebbing estate," and as late as 1629 he was still Â£10 16s. 9d. in debt to the College Steward. We can thus hardly imagine that he was possessed of any considerable private income when he returned to London, to live practically on his wits, and a study of his poems suggests that, the influence of the careful uncle removed, whatever capital he possessed was soon likely to vanish.[B] His verses to the Earl of Pembroke, to Endymion Porter and to others, show that he was glad of "pay" as well as "praise," but the system of patronage brought no discredit with it, and though the absence of any poetical mention of his uncle suggests that the rich goldsmith was not well-pleased with his nephew, with the rest of his well-to-do relations Herrick seems to have remained on excellent terms. [B] Yet in his _Farewell to Poetry_ he distinctly says:-- "I've more to bear my charge than way to go"; the line, however, is a translation from his favourite Seneca, Ep. 77. Besides patrons, such as Pembroke, Westmoreland, Newark, Buckingham, Herrick had less distinguished friends at Court, Edward Norgate, Jack Crofts and others. He composed the words for two New Year anthems which were set to music by Henry Lawes, and he was probably personally known both to the King and Queen. Outside the Court he reckoned himself one of Ben Jonson's disciples, "Sons of Ben" as they were called, had friends at the Inns of Court, knew the organist of Westminster Abbey and his pretty daughters, and had every temptation to live an amusing and expensive life. His poems were handed about in manuscript after the fashion of the time, and wherever music and poetry were loved he was sure to be a welcome guest. Mr. Hazlitt's conjecture that Herrick at this time may have held some small post in the Chapel at Whitehall is not unreasonable, but at what date he took Holy Orders is not known. In 1627 he obtained the post of chaplain to the unlucky expedition to the Isle of RhÃ©, and two years later (September 30, 1629) he was presented by the King to the Vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire, which the promotion of its previous incumbent, Dr. Potter, to the Bishopric of Carlisle, had left in the royal gift. The annual value of the living was only Â£50 (Â£250 present value), no great prize, but the poem entitled _Mr. Robert Hericke: his farwell unto Poetrie_ (not printed in _Hesperides_, but extant in more than one manuscript version) shows that the poet was not unaware of the responsibilities of his profession. "But unto me," he says to his Muse: "But unto me be only hoarse, since now (Heaven and my soul bear record of my vow) I my desires screw from thee and direct Them and my thoughts to that sublime respect And conscience unto priesthood. 'Tis not need (The scarecrow unto mankind) that doth breed Wiser conclusions in me, since I know I've more to bear my charge than way to go; Or had I not, I'd stop the spreading itch Of craving more: so in conceit be rich; But 'tis the God of nature who intends And shapes my function for more glorious ends." Perhaps it was at this time too that Herrick wrote his _Farewell to Sack_, and although he returned both to sack and to poetry we should be wrong in imagining him as a "blind mouth," using his office merely as a means of gain. He celebrated the births of Charles II and his brother in verse, perhaps with an eye to future royal favours, but no more than Chaucer's good parson does he seem to have "run to London unto Seynte Poules" in search of the seventeenth century equivalent for a chauntry, and many of his poems show him living the life of a contented country clergyman, sharing the contents of bin and cruse with his poor parishioners, and jotting down sermon-notes in verse. The great majority of Herrick's poems cannot be dated, and it is idle to enquire which were written before his ordination and which afterwards. His conception of religion was medieval in its sensuousness, and he probably repeated the stages of sin, repentance and renewed assurance with some facility. He lived with an old servant, Prudence Baldwin, the "Prew" of many of his poems; kept a spaniel named Tracy, and, so says tradition, a tame pig. When his parishioners annoyed him he seems to have comforted himself with epigrams on them; when they slumbered during one of his sermons the manuscript was suddenly hurled at them with a curse for their inattention. In the same year that Herrick was appointed to his country vicarage his mother died while living with her daughter, Mercy, the poet's dearest sister (see 818), then for some time married to John Wingfield of Brantham in Suffolk (see 590), by whom she had three sons and a daughter, also called Mercy. His eldest brother, Thomas, had been placed with a Mr. Massam, a merchant, but as early as 1610 had retired to live a country life in Leicestershire (see 106). He appears to have married a wife named Elizabeth, whose loss Herrick laments (see 72). Nicholas, the next brother was more adventurous. He had become a merchant trading to the Levant, and in this capacity had visited the Holy Land (see 1100). To his wife Susanna, daughter of William Salter, Herrick addresses two poems (522 and 977). There were three sons and four daughters in this family, and Herrick wrote a poem to one of the daughters, Bridget (562), and an elegy on another, Elizabeth (376). When Mrs. Herrick died the bulk of her property was left to the Wingfields, but William Herrick received a legacy of Â£100, with ten pounds apiece to his two children, and a ring of twenty shillings to his wife. Nicholas and Robert were only left twenty-shilling rings, and the administration of the will was entrusted to William Herrick and the Wingfields. The will may have been the result of a family arrangement, and we have no reason to believe that the unequal division gave rise to any ill-feeling. Herrick's address to "his dying brother, Master William Herrick" (186), shows abundant affection, and there is every reason to believe that it was addressed to the William who administered to Mrs. Herrick's will. While little nephews and nieces were springing up around him, Herrick remained unmarried, and frequently congratulates himself on his freedom from the yoke matrimonial. He imagined how he would bid farewell to his wife, if he had one (465), and wrote magnificent epithalamia for his friends, but lived and died a bachelor. When first civil troubles and then civil war cast a shadow over the land, it is not very easy to say how he viewed the contending parties. He was devoted to Charles and Henrietta Maria and the young Prince of Wales, and rejoiced at every Royalist success. Many also of his poems breathe the spirit of unquestioning loyalty, but in others he is less certain of kingly wisdom. Something, however, must be allowed for his evident habit of versifying any phrase or epigram which impressed him, and not all his poems need be regarded as expressions of his personal opinions. But with whatever doubts his loyalty was qualified, it was sufficiently obvious to procure his ejection from his living in 1648; and, making the best of his loss, he bade farewell to Dean Prior, shook the dust of "loathed Devonshire" off his feet, and returned gaily to London, where he appears to have discarded his clerical habit and to have been made abundantly welcome by his friends. Free from the cares of his incumbency, and free also from the restraints it imposed, Herrick's thoughts turned to the publication of his poems. As we have said, in his old Court-days these had found some circulation in manuscript, and in 1635 one of his fairy poems was printed, probably without his leave (see Appendix). In 1639 his poem (575) _The Apparition of his Mistress calling him to Elysium_ was licensed at Stationers' Hall under the title of _His Mistress' Shade_, and it was included the next year in an edition of Shakespeare's Poems (see Notes). On April 29, 1640, "The severall poems written by Master Robert Herrick," were entered as to be published by Andrew Crook, but no trace of such a volume has been discovered, and it was only in 1648 that _Hesperides_ at length appeared. Two years later upwards of eighty of the poems in it were printed in the 1650 edition of _Witt's Recreations_, but a small number of these show considerable variations from the _Hesperides_ versions, and it is probable that they were printed from the poet's manuscript. Compilers of other miscellanies and song books laid Herrick under contribution, but, with the one exception of his contribution to the _LacrymÃ¦ Musarum_ in 1649, no fresh production of his pen has been preserved, and we know nothing further of his life save that he returned to Dean Prior after the Restoration (August 24, 1662), and that according to the parish register "Robert Herrick, Vicker, was buried y^e 15th day October, 1674." ALFRED W. POLLARD NOTE TO SECOND EDITION. In this edition some trifling errors, which had crept into the text and the numeration of the poems, have been corrected, and many fresh illustrations of Herrick's reading added in the notes, which have elsewhere been slightly compressed to make room for them. Almost all of the new notes have been supplied from the manuscript collections of a veteran student of Herrick who placed himself in correspondence with me after the publication of my first edition. To my great regret I am not allowed to make my acknowledgments to him by name. A. W. P. HESPERIDES: OR, THE WORKS BOTH HUMANE & DIVINE OF ROBERT HERRICK _Esq._ OVID. _Effugient avidos Carmina nostra Rogos._ _LONDON._ Printed for _John Williams_, and _Francis Eglesfield_, and are to be sold by _Tho: Hunt_, Book-seller in _Exon._ 1648. TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST HOPEFUL PRINCE. CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES. Well may my book come forth like public day When such a light as you are leads the way, Who are my work's creator, and alone The flame of it, and the expansion. And look how all those heavenly lamps acquire Light from the sun, that inexhausted fire, So all my morn and evening stars from you Have their existence, and their influence too. Full is my book of glories; but all these By you become immortal substances. HESPERIDES. 1. THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK. I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers, Of April, May, of June and July-flowers; I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides and of their bridal cakes; I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness; I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece Of balm, of oil, of spice and ambergris; I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write How roses first came red and lilies white; I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing The Court of Mab, and of the Fairy King; I write of hell; I sing (and ever shall) Of heaven, and hope to have it after all. _Hock-cart_, the last cart from the harvest-field. _Wakes_, village festivals, properly on the dedication-day of a church. _Ambergris_, 'grey amber,' much used in perfumery. 2. TO HIS MUSE. Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roam? Far safer 'twere to stay at home, Where thou mayst sit and piping please The poor and private cottages, Since cotes and hamlets best agree With this thy meaner minstrelsy. There with the reed thou mayst express The shepherd's fleecy happiness, And with thy eclogues intermix Some smooth and harmless bucolics. There on a hillock thou mayst sing Unto a handsome shepherdling, Or to a girl, that keeps the neat, With breath more sweet than violet. There, there, perhaps, such lines as these May take the simple villages; But for the court, the country wit Is despicable unto it. Stay, then, at home, and do not go Or fly abroad to seek for woe. Contempts in courts and cities dwell, No critic haunts the poor man's cell, Where thou mayst hear thine own lines read By no one tongue there censured. That man's unwise will search for ill, And may prevent it, sitting still. 3. TO HIS BOOK. While thou didst keep thy candour undefil'd, Dearly I lov'd thee as my first-born child, But when I saw thee wantonly to roam From house to house, and never stay at home, I brake my bonds of love, and bade thee go, Regardless whether well thou sped'st or no. On with thy fortunes then, whate'er they be: If good, I'll smile; if bad, I'll sigh for thee. 4. ANOTHER. To read my book the virgin shy May blush while Brutus standeth by, But when he's gone, read through what's writ, And never stain a cheek for it. _Brutus_, see Martial, xi. 16, quoted in Note at the end of the volume. 7. TO HIS BOOK. Come thou not near those men who are like bread O'er-leaven'd, or like cheese o'er-renneted. 8. WHEN HE WOULD HAVE HIS VERSES READ. In sober mornings, do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse; But when that men have both well drunk and fed, Let my enchantments then be sung or read. When laurel spirts i'th' fire, and when the hearth Smiles to itself, and gilds the roof with mirth; When up the thyrse[C] is rais'd, and when the sound Of sacred orgies[D] flies, a round, a round. When the rose reigns, and locks with ointments shine, Let rigid Cato read these lines of mine. _Round_, a rustic dance. _Cato_, see Martial, x. 17, quoted in Note. [C] "A javelin twined with ivy" (Note in the original edition). [D] "Songs to Bacchus" (Note in the original edition.) 9. UPON JULIA'S RECOVERY. Droop, droop no more, or hang the head, Ye roses almost withered; Now strength and newer purple get, Each here declining violet. O primroses! let this day be A resurrection unto ye; And to all flowers ally'd in blood, Or sworn to that sweet sisterhood: For health on Julia's cheek hath shed Claret and cream commingled; And those her lips do now appear As beams of coral, but more clear. _Beams_, perhaps here = branches: but cp. 440. 10. TO SILVIA TO WED. Let us, though late, at last, my Silvia, wed, And loving lie in one devoted bed. Thy watch may stand, my minutes fly post-haste; No sound calls back the year that once is past. Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay; _True love, we know, precipitates delay._ Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove; _No man at one time can be wise and love._ 11. THE PARLIAMENT OF ROSES TO JULIA. I dreamt the roses one time went To meet and sit in parliament; The place for these, and for the rest Of flowers, was thy spotless breast, Over the which a state was drawn Of tiffanie or cobweb lawn. Then in that parly all those powers Voted the rose the queen of flowers; But so as that herself should be The maid of honour unto thee. _State_, a canopy. _Tiffanie_, gauze. _Parly_, a parliament. 12. NO BASHFULNESS IN BEGGING. To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside; _Who fears to ask doth teach to be deny'd._ 13. THE FROZEN HEART. I freeze, I freeze, and nothing dwells In me but snow and icicles. For pity's sake, give your advice, To melt this snow and thaw this ice. I'll drink down flames; but if so be Nothing but love can supple me, I'll rather keep this frost and snow Than to be thaw'd or heated so. 14. TO PERILLA. Ah, my Perilla! dost thou grieve to see Me, day by day, to steal away from thee? Age calls me hence, and my grey hairs bid come, And haste away to mine eternal home; 'Twill not be long, Perilla, after this, That I must give thee the supremest kiss. Dead when I am, first cast in salt, and bring Part of the cream from that religious spring; With which, Perilla, wash my hands and feet; That done, then wind me in that very sheet Which wrapt thy smooth limbs when thou didst implore The gods' protection but the night before. Follow me weeping to my turf, and there Let fall a primrose, and with it a tear: Then, lastly, let some weekly-strewings be Devoted to the memory of me: Then shall my ghost not walk about, but keep Still in the cool and silent shades of sleep. _Weekly strewings_, _i.e._, of flowers on his grave. _First cast in salt_, cp. 769. 15. A SONG TO THE MASKERS. Come down and dance ye in the toil Of pleasures to a heat; But if to moisture, let the oil Of roses be your sweat. Not only to yourselves assume These sweets, but let them fly From this to that, and so perfume E'en all the standers by; As goddess Isis, when she went Or glided through the street, Made all that touched her, with her scent, And whom she touched, turn sweet. 16. TO PERENNA. When I thy parts run o'er, I can't espy In any one the least indecency; But every line and limb diffused thence A fair and unfamiliar excellence: So that the more I look the more I prove There's still more cause why I the more should love. _Indecency_, uncomeliness. 17. TREASON. The seeds of treason choke up as they spring: _He acts the crime that gives it cherishing_. 18. TWO THINGS ODIOUS. Two of a thousand things are disallow'd: A lying rich man, and a poor man proud. 19. TO HIS MISTRESSES. Help me! help me! now I call To my pretty witchcrafts all; Old I am, and cannot do That I was accustomed to. Bring your magics, spells, and charms, To enflesh my thighs and arms. Is there no way to beget In my limbs their former heat? Ãson had, as poets feign, Baths that made him young again: Find that medicine, if you can, For your dry decrepit man Who would fain his strength renew, Were it but to pleasure you. _Ãson_, rejuvenated by Medea; see Ovid, Met. vii. 20. THE WOUNDED HEART. Come bring your sampler, and with art Draw in't a wounded heart And dropping here and there: Not that I think that any dart Can make yours bleed a tear, Or pierce it anywhere; Yet do it to this end: that I May by This secret see, Though you can make That heart to bleed, yours ne'er will ache For me. 21. NO LOATHSOMENESS IN LOVE. What I fancy I approve, _No dislike there is in love_. Be my mistress short or tall, And distorted therewithal: Be she likewise one of those That an acre hath of nose: Be her forehead and her eyes Full of incongruities: Be her cheeks so shallow too As to show her tongue wag through; Be her lips ill hung or set, And her grinders black as jet: Has she thin hair, hath she none, She's to me a paragon. 22. TO ANTHEA. If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be To live some few sad hours after thee, Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn, And with my laurel crown thy golden urn. Then holding up there such religious things As were, time past, thy holy filletings, Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fall Down dead for grief, and end my woes withal: So three in one small plat of ground shall lie-- Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry. 23. THE WEEPING CHERRY. I saw a cherry weep, and why? Why wept it? but for shame Because my Julia's lip was by, And did out-red the same. But, pretty fondling, let not fall A tear at all for that: Which rubies, corals, scarlets, all For tincture wonder at. 24. SOFT MUSIC. The mellow touch of music most doth wound The soul when it doth rather sigh than sound. 25. THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT KINGS AND SUBJECTS. 'Twixt kings and subjects there's this mighty odds: Subjects are taught by men; kings by the gods. 26. HIS ANSWER TO A QUESTION. Some would know Why I so Long still do tarry, And ask why Here that I Live and not marry. Thus I those Do oppose: What man would be here Slave to thrall, If at all He could live free here? 27. UPON JULIA'S FALL. Julia was careless, and withal She rather took than got a fall, The wanton ambler chanc'd to see Part of her legs' sincerity: And ravish'd thus, it came to pass, The nag (like to the prophet's ass) Began to speak, and would have been A-telling what rare sights he'd seen: And had told all; but did refrain Because his tongue was tied again. 28. EXPENSES EXHAUST. Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate; _Small shots paid often waste a vast estate_. _Shots_, debts. 29. LOVE, WHAT IT IS. Love is a circle that doth restless move In the same sweet eternity of love. 30. PRESENCE AND ABSENCE. When what is lov'd is present, love doth spring; But being absent, love lies languishing. 31. NO SPOUSE BUT A SISTER. A bachelor I will Live as I have liv'd still, And never take a wife To crucify my life; But this I'll tell ye too, What now I mean to do: A sister (in the stead Of wife) about I'll lead; Which I will keep embrac'd, And kiss, but yet be chaste. 32. THE POMANDER BRACELET. To me my Julia lately sent A bracelet richly redolent: The beads I kissed, but most lov'd her That did perfume the pomander. _Pomander_, a ball of scent. 33. THE SHOE-TYING. Anthea bade me tie her shoe; I did; and kissed the instep too: And would have kissed unto her knee, Had not her blush rebuked me. 34. THE CARCANET. Instead of orient pearls of jet I sent my love a carcanet; About her spotless neck she knit The lace, to honour me or it: Then think how rapt was I to see My jet t'enthral such ivory. _Carcanet_, necklace. _Lace_, any kind of girdle; used here for the necklace. 35. HIS SAILING FROM JULIA. When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone Unto that watery desolation, Devoutly to thy closet-gods then pray That my wing'd ship may meet no remora. Those deities which circum-walk the seas, And look upon our dreadful passages, Will from all dangers re-deliver me For one drink-offering poured out by thee. Mercy and truth live with thee! and forbear (In my short absence) to unsluice a tear; But yet for love's sake let thy lips do this, Give my dead picture one engendering kiss: Work that to life, and let me ever dwell In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell. _Closet-gods_, the Roman Lares. _Remora_, the sea Lamprey or suckstone, believed to check the course of ships by clinging to their keels. 36. HOW THE WALL-FLOWER CAME FIRST, AND WHY SO CALLED. Why this flower is now call'd so, List, sweet maids, and you shall know. Understand, this firstling was Once a brisk and bonnie lass, Kept as close as DanaÃ« was: Who a sprightly springall lov'd, And to have it fully prov'd, Up she got upon a wall, Tempting down to slide withal: But the silken twist untied, So she fell, and, bruis'd, she died. Love, in pity of the deed, And her loving-luckless speed, Turn'd her to this plant we call Now _the flower of the wall_. _Tempting_, trying. 37. WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR. These fresh beauties (we can prove) Once were virgins sick of love. Turn'd to flowers,--still in some Colours go and colours come. 38. TO HIS MISTRESS OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER TOYING OR TALKING. You say I love not, 'cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away. You blame me too, because I can't devise Some sport to please those babies in your eyes: By love's religion, I must here confess it, The most I love when I the least express it. _Small griefs find tongues_: full casks are ever found To give (if any, yet) but little sound. _Deep waters noiseless are_; and this we know, _That chiding streams betray small depth below_. So, when love speechless is, she doth express A depth in love and that depth bottomless. Now, since my love is tongueless, know me such Who speak but little 'cause I love so much. _Babies in your eyes_, see Note. 39. UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESSES. I have lost, and lately, these Many dainty mistresses: Stately Julia, prime of all: Sappho next, a principal: Smooth Anthea for a skin White, and heaven-like crystalline: Sweet Electra, and the choice Myrrha for the lute and voice: Next Corinna, for her wit, And the graceful use of it: With Perilla: all are gone; Only Herrick's left alone For to number sorrow by Their departures hence, and die. 40. THE DREAM. Methought last night Love in an anger came And brought a rod, so whipt me with the same; Myrtle the twigs were, merely to imply Love strikes, but 'tis with gentle cruelty. Patient I was: Love pitiful grew then And strok'd the stripes, and I was whole again. Thus, like a bee, Love gentle still doth bring Honey to salve where he before did sting. 42. TO LOVE. I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear My puling pipe to beat against thine ear. Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be; Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me. He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke, Submits his neck unto a second yoke. 43. ON HIMSELF. Young I was, but now am old, But I am not yet grown cold; I can play, and I can twine 'Bout a virgin like a vine: In her lap too I can lie Melting, and in fancy die; And return to life if she Claps my cheek, or kisseth me: Thus, and thus it now appears That our love outlasts our years. 44. LOVE'S PLAY AT PUSH-PIN. Love and myself, believe me, on a day At childish push-pin, for our sport, did play; I put, he pushed, and, heedless of my skin, Love pricked my finger with a golden pin; Since which it festers so that I can prove 'Twas but a trick to poison me with love: Little the wound was, greater was the smart, The finger bled, but burnt was all my heart. _Push-pin_, a game in which pins are pushed with an endeavor to cross them. 45. THE ROSARY. One ask'd me where the roses grew: I bade him not go seek, But forthwith bade my Julia show A bud in either cheek. 46. UPON CUPID. Old wives have often told how they Saw Cupid bitten by a flea; And thereupon, in tears half drown'd, He cried aloud: Help, help the wound! He wept, he sobb'd, he call'd to some To bring him lint and balsamum, To make a tent, and put it in Where the stiletto pierced the skin; Which, being done, the fretful pain Assuaged, and he was well again. _Tent_, a roll of lint for probing wounds. 47. THE PARCÃ; OR, THREE DAINTY DESTINIES: THE ARMILLET. Three lovely sisters working were, As they were closely set, Of soft and dainty maidenhair A curious armillet. I, smiling, asked them what they did, Fair Destinies all three, Who told me they had drawn a thread Of life, and 'twas for me. They show'd me then how fine 'twas spun, And I reply'd thereto,-- "I care not now how soon 'tis done, Or cut, if cut by you". 48. SORROWS SUCCEED. When one is past, another care we have: _Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave_. 49. CHERRY-PIT. Julia and I did lately sit Playing for sport at cherry-pit: She threw; I cast; and, having thrown, I got the pit, and she the stone. _Cherry-pit_, a game in which cherry-stones were pitched into a small hole. 50. TO ROBIN REDBREAST. Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be With leaves and moss-work for to cover me: And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter, Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister! For epitaph, in foliage, next write this: _Here, here the tomb of Robin Herrick is_. 51. DISCONTENTS IN DEVON. More discontents I never had Since I was born than here, Where I have been, and still am sad, In this dull Devonshire; Yet, justly too, I must confess I ne'er invented such Ennobled numbers for the press, Than where I loathed so much. 52. TO HIS PATERNAL COUNTRY. O earth! earth! earth! hear thou my voice, and be Loving and gentle for to cover me: Banish'd from thee I live, ne'er to return, Unless thou giv'st my small remains an urn. 53. CHERRY-RIPE. Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, Full and fair ones; come and buy. If so be you ask me where They do grow, I answer: There, Where my Julia's lips do smile; There's the land, or cherry-isle, Whose plantations fully show All the year where cherries grow. 54. TO HIS MISTRESSES. Put on your silks, and piece by piece Give them the scent of ambergris; And for your breaths, too, let them smell Ambrosia-like, or nectarel; While other gums their sweets perspire, By your own jewels set on fire. 55. TO ANTHEA. Now is the time, when all the lights wax dim; And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me Under that Holy-oak or Gospel-tree, Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon Me, when thou yearly go'st procession; Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb In which thy sacred relics shall have room. For my embalming, sweetest, there will be No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee. _Holy oak_, the oak under which the minister read the Gospel in the procession round the parish bounds in Rogation week. 56. THE VISION TO ELECTRA. I dreamed we both were in a bed Of roses, almost smothered: The warmth and sweetness had me there Made lovingly familiar, But that I heard thy sweet breath say, Faults done by night will blush by day. I kissed thee, panting, and, I call Night to the record! that was all. But, ah! if empty dreams so please, Love give me more such nights as these. 57. DREAMS. Here we are all by day; by night we're hurl'd By dreams, each one into a sev'ral world. 58. AMBITION. In man ambition is the common'st thing; Each one by nature loves to be a king. 59. HIS REQUEST TO JULIA. Julia, if I chance to die Ere I print my poetry, I most humbly thee desire To commit it to the fire: Better 'twere my book were dead Than to live not perfected. 60. MONEY GETS THE MASTERY. Fight thou with shafts of silver and o'ercome, When no force else can get the masterdom. 61. THE SCARE-FIRE. Water, water I desire, Here's a house of flesh on fire; Ope the fountains and the springs, And come all to bucketings: What ye cannot quench pull down; Spoil a house to save a town: Better 'tis that one should fall, Than by one to hazard all. _Scare-fire_, fire-alarm. 62. UPON SILVIA, A MISTRESS. When some shall say, Fair once my Silvia was, Thou wilt complain, False now's thy looking-glass, Which renders that quite tarnished which was green, And priceless now what peerless once had been. Upon thy form more wrinkles yet will fall, And, coming down, shall make no noise at all. _Priceless_, valueless. 63. CHEERFULNESS IN CHARITY; OR, THE SWEET SACRIFICE. 'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighs Can please those heav'nly deities, If the vower don't express In his offering cheerfulness. 65. SWEETNESS IN SACRIFICE. 'Tis not greatness they require To be offer'd up by fire; But 'tis sweetness that doth please Those _Eternal Essences_. 66. STEAM IN SACRIFICE. If meat the gods give, I the steam High-towering will devote to them, Whose easy natures like it well, If we the roast have, they the smell. 67. UPON JULIA'S VOICE. So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice, As, could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise, But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber, Melting melodious words to lutes of amber. _Amber_, used here merely for any rich material: cp. "Treading on amber with their silver feet". 68. AGAIN. When I thy singing next shall hear, I'll wish I might turn all to ear To drink in notes and numbers such As blessed souls can't hear too much; Then melted down, there let me lie Entranc'd and lost confusedly, And, by thy music stricken mute, Die and be turn'd into a lute. 69. ALL THINGS DECAY AND DIE. _All things decay with time_: the forest sees The growth and downfall of her aged trees; That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood The proud dictator of the state-like wood,-- I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak-- Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke. _Lusters_, the Roman reckoning of five years. 70. THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET MONTHS. First, April, she with mellow showers Opens the way for early flowers; Then after her comes smiling May, In a more rich and sweet array; Next enters June, and brings us more Gems than those two that went before: Then (lastly) July comes, and she More wealth brings in than all those three. 71. NO SHIPWRECK OF VIRTUE. TO A FRIEND. Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here; Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear; But trust to this, my noble passenger; Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure (Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure, And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure. _Bulging_, leaking. 72. UPON HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, MISTRESS ELIZABETH HERRICK. First, for effusions due unto the dead, My solemn vows have here accomplished: Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
{'title': 'The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 by Robert Herrick', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}