THOU art to all lost love the best,

The only true plant found,

Wherewith young men and maids, distress'd
And left of love, are crown'd.

When once the lover's rose is dead
Or laid aside forlorn,

Then willow-garlands 'bout the head
Bedew'd with tears are worn.

When with neglect, the lovers' bane,
Poor maids rewarded be,

For their love lost, their only gain
Is but a wreath from thee.

And underneath thy cooling shade,
When weary of the light,

The love-spent youth and love-sick maid
Come to weep out the night.

Robert Herrick.

TO ANTHEA, WHO

212

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 I will 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.

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.

Robert Herrick.

ΤΟ

213

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.

You've heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round:
Each virgin like a spring,
With honeysuckles crown'd.

But now we see none here

Whose silvery feet did tread,

And with dishevell'd hair
Adorn'd this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock and needy grown,
Y'are left here to lament
Your poor estates, alone.

Robert Herrick.

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.

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.

Robert Herrick.

216

TO DAISIES, NOT TO SHUT SO SOON

SHUT not so soon: the dull-ey'd night

Has not as yet begun

To make a seizure on the light,

Or to seal up the sun.

No marigolds yet closed are,

No shadows great appear,

Nor doth the early shepherd's star
Shine like a spangle here.

O, stay but till my Julia close

Her life-begetting eye,

And let the whole world then dispose

Itself to live or die!

то

217

OENONE

Robert Herrick.

WHAT conscience, say, is it in thee,
When I a heart had one,

To take away that heart from me,
And to retain thy own?

HERRICK

For shame or pity now incline
To play a loving part:
Either to send me kindly thine,
Or give me back my heart.

OF THE

UNIVER

Covet not both; but if thou dost
Resolve to part with neither,

or

CALIFORNIA

Why! yet to show that thou art just,
Take me and mine together.

Robert Herrick.

218

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 the glass your lips incline,

And I shall see by that one kiss

The water turn'd to wine.

Robert Herrick.

219

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 bepearl'd with dew?
I will whisper to your ears :-

The sweets of love are mix'd 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.

Robert Herrick.

189