The cairn

Chapter 240: Delight in Disorder—Herrick.

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About This Book

A compact miscellany of short essays, anecdotes, prayers, poems, and biographical sketches that collects reflections on grief, maternal love, benevolence, virtue, taste, and historical episodes. The pieces alternate personal memories, moral aphorisms, humorous and touching anecdotes, and brief portraits of public figures, often framed as letters, epitaphs, or short narratives. Recurring themes include the effects of sorrow and joy, domestic affection, charity, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the consolations of faith and art. The tone moves between intimate recollection and light moralizing, presenting varied, self-contained vignettes meant to instruct, console, and amuse.

Delight in Disorder—Herrick.

Delight in disorder.

A sweet disorder in the dresse,

Kindles in cloaths a wantonesse,

A lawne about the shoulders throwne,

Into a fine distraction;

An erring lace, which here and there,

Enthral the crimson stomacher;

A cuffe neglectful, and thereby

Ribbands to fly confusedly:

A winning wave (deserving note)

In the tempestuous petticoat:

A careless shoe-string, in whose tye,

I see a wilde civility,

Does more bewitche me, than when art

Is too precise in every part.