Robert Herrick (poet)

If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right
It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.

Robert Herrick (baptized August 24, 1591- October 1674) was a 17th century English poet. Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith, who committed suicide when Robert was a year old.

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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.

• 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.
  • Noble Numbers (1648), "A Child's Grace"

• Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
  Why do ye fall so fast?
  Your date is not so past
  But you may stay yet here awhile
  To blush and gently smile,
  And go at last.
  • "To Blossoms"

Hesperides (1648)

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.

• I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers:
  Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
  I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
  Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
  • "Argument of His Book"

• What is a kiss? Why this, as some approve:
  The sure, sweet cement, glue, and lime of love.
  • "A Kiss"

• 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.
  • "To Anthea, st. 1"

• 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.
  • "To Anthea, st. 5"

• 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.
  • "Cherry Ripe"

• If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right
  It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.
  • "The End"

• Some asked me where the rubies grew,
  And nothing I did say;
  But with my finger pointed to
  The lips of Julia.
  • "The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls"

• Some asked how pearls did grow, and where?
  Then spoke I to my girl
  To part her lips, and showed them there
  The quarelets of pearl.
  • "The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls"

• Fall on me like a silent dew,
  Or like those maiden showers
  Which, by the peep of day, do strew
  A baptism o’er the flowers.
  • "To Music, to becalm his Fever"

• A sweet disorder in the dress
  Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
  • "Delight in Disorder"

• A winning wave, deserving note,
  In the tempestuous petticoat,
  A careless shoestring, in whose tie
  I see a wild civility,
  Do more bewitch me than when art
  Is too precise in every part.
  • "Delight in Disorder"

• You say to me-wards your affection's strong;
  Pray love me little, so you love me long.
  • "Love Me Little, Love Me Long". Compare: "Love me little, love me long", Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Act iv; "Me love you long time", 2 Live Crew, "Me So Horny" (sampled from the Stanley Kubrick film, Full Metal Jacket).

• Night makes no difference 'twixt the Priest and Clerk;
  Joan as my Lady is as good i' the dark.
  • "No Difference i' th' Dark"

• Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
  Then to that twenty, add a hundred more:
  A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
  To make that thousand up a million.
  Treble that million, and when that is done,
  Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
  • "To Anthea: Ah, My Anthea!"

• Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
  Old Time is still a-flying,
  And this same flower that smiles today
  Tomorrow 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.
  • "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time". Compare: "Gather the rose of love whilest yet is time", Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, book ii. canto xii. stanza 75. ; "Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered", Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 8.

• Fair daffadills, we weep to see
  You haste away so soon:
  As yet the early rising sun
  Has not attained his noon.
  • "To Daffadills"

• Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
  • "Sorrows Succeed". Compare: "One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow", William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7.

• Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
  A little out, and then,
  As if they playèd at bo-peep,
  Did soon draw in again.
  • "To Mistress Susanna Southwell". Compare: "Her feet beneath her petticoat / Like little mice stole in and out", Sir John Suckling, "Ballad upon a Wedding".

• 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.
  • "The Night Piece to Julia"

• I saw a flie within a beade
  Of amber cleanly buried.
  • "The Amber Bead" (published c. 1648). Compare: "Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb", Francis Bacon, Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100.

• Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
  New things succeed, as former things grow old.
  • "Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve"

• We such clusters had
  As made us nobly wild, not mad;
  And yet each verse of thine
  Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
  • "Ode for Ben Jonson"

• Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
  Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
  • "Seek and Find". Compare: "Nil tam difficilest quin quærendo investigari possiet" (transalted as "Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking"), Terence, Heautontimoroumenos, iv. 2, 8.

• Before man's fall the rose was born,
  St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;
  But for man's fault then was the thorn
  Without the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.
  • "The Rose" (published c. 1648). Compare: "Flower of all hue, and without thorn the rose", John Milton, Paradise Lost, book iv. line 256.; "Every rose has it's thorn", Poison, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn".

• God doth not promise here to man that He
  Will free him quickly from his misery;
  But in His own time, and when He thinks fit,
  Then He will give a happy end to it.
  • "God's Time Must End Our Trouble"

• Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see
  The dew bespangling herb and tree.
  • "Corinna's Going A-Maying"

• 'Tis sin,
  Nay, profanation to keep in.
  • "Corinna's Going A-Maying"

• 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.
  • "Corinna's Going A-Maying"

• 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!
  • "Upon Julia's Clothes"

• Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
  Which starlike sparkle in their skies;
  Nor be you proud that you can see
  All hearts your captives, yours yet free
  • Poem "To Dianeme"

• Art quickens nature; care will make a face; Neglected beauty perisheth apace.
  • "Neglect"

External links

• Robert, 1591-1674 Works by Robert Herrick at Project Gutenberg
• Chrysomela: A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick
• Upon Kings. Poems Upon Several Personages of Honour ...
• The Complete Poetry of Robert Herrick (with full biography) at Newcastle University