Robert Herrick (poet)
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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.
Hesperides[edit]
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.
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.- 1. "The Argument of His Book".
- To read my booke the Virgin Shie
May blush, (while Brutus standeth by:)
But when He’s gone, read through what’s writ,
And never staine a cheeke for it.- 4. "Another [to his Booke]".
- Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
- 48. "Sorrows Succeed". Compare: "One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow", William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7.
- 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.- 53. "Cherry Ripe".
- 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.- 74. "To Anthea: Ah, My Anthea!"
- Some asked me where the rubies grew,
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.- 75. "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.- 75. "The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls".
- 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
Enthralls 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.
- 83. "Delight in Disorder".
- You say to me-wards your affection's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.- 143. "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).
- 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- 160. "To Dianeme"
- Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.- 178. "Corinna's Going A-Maying".
- 'Tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in.- 178. "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.- 178. "Corinna's Going A-Maying".
- Then while time serves, and we are but decaying.
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a Maying.
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
- 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.- 208. "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.
- 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.- 227. "To Music, to becalm his Fever".
- Art quickens nature; care will make a face; Neglected beauty perisheth apace.
- 234. "Neglect".
- 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.- 251. "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.- 252. "God's Time Must End Our Trouble".
- 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.- 267. "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.- 267. "To Anthea, st. 5".
- If well thou hast begun, go on fore-right
It is the end that crowns us, not the fight.- 309. "The End".
- Fair daffadills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.- 316. "To Daffadills".
- 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.- 467. "To Blossoms".
- Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they playèd at bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.- 525. "To Mistress Susanna Southwell" ("Upon Her Feet"). 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.- 619. "The Night Piece to Julia".
- What is a kiss? Why this, as some approve:
The sure, sweet cement, glue, and lime of love.- 622. "A Kiss".
- 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!- 779. "Upon Julia's Clothes".
- I saw a flie within a beade
Of amber cleanly buried.- 817. "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.
- Night makes no difference 'twixt the Priest and Clerk;
Joan as my Lady is as good i' the dark.- 864. "No Difference i' th' Dark".
- Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.- 892. "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.- 911. "Ode for Ben Jonson" ("An Ode for Him").
- Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.- 1008. "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.
Noble Numbers (1648)[edit]
- 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.- 95, "A Child's Grace" ("Another Grace for a Child").
