Fly hence, pale care, no more remember
 Past sorrows with the fled December,
 But let each pleasant cheek appear
 Smooth as the childhood of the year,
 And sing a carol here.
 'Twas brave, 'twas brave, could we command the hand
 Of youth's swift watch to stand
 As you have done your day;
 Then should we not decay.
 But all we wither, and our light
 Is spilt in everlasting night,
 Whenas your sight
 Shows like the heavens above the moon,
 Like an eternal noon
 That sees no setting sun.
Keep up those flames, and though you shroud
 Awhile your forehead in a cloud,
 Do it like the sun to write
 In the air a greater text of light;
 Welcome to all our vows,
 And since you pay
 To us this day
 So long desir'd,
 See we have fir'd
 Our holy spikenard, and there's none
 But brings his stick of cinnamon,
 His eager eye or smoother smile,
 And lays it gently on the pile,
 Which thus enkindled, we invoke
 Your name amidst the sacred smoke.
Chorus.   Come then, great Lord.
 And see our altar burn
 With love of your return,
 And not a man here but consumes
 His soul to glad you in perfumes.

SONG. HIS MISTRESS TO HIM AT HIS FAREWELL.

You may vow I'll not forget
 To pay the debt
 Which to thy memory stands as due
 As faith can seal it you;
 Take then tribute of my tears,
 So long as I have fears
 To prompt me I shall ever
 Languish and look, but thy return see never.
 Oh then to lessen my despair
 Print thy lips into the air,
 So by this
 Means I may kiss thy kiss
 Whenas some kind
 Wind
 Shall hither waft it, and in lieu
 My lips shall send a 1000 back to you.

UPON PARTING.

Go hence away, and in thy parting know
 'Tis not my voice but Heaven's that bids thee go;
 Spring hence thy faith, nor think it ill desert
 I find in thee that makes me thus to part.
 But voice of fame, and voice of Heaven have thundered
 We both were lost, if both of us not sundered.
 Fold now thine arms, and in thy last look rear
 One sigh of love, and cool it with a tear.
 Since part we must, let's kiss; that done, retire
 With as cold frost as erst we met with fire;
 With such white vows as fate can ne'er dissever,
 But truth knit fast; and so, farewell for ever.

UPON MASTER FLETCHER'S INCOMPARABLE PLAYS.

Apollo sings, his harp resounds: give room,
 For now behold the golden pomp is come,
 Thy pomp of plays which thousands come to see
 With admiration both of them and thee.
 O volume! worthy, leaf by leaf and cover,
 To be with juice of cedar wash'd all over;
 Here words with lines and lines with scenes consent
 To raise an act to full astonishment;
 Here melting numbers, words of power to move
 Young men to swoon and maids to die for love.
 Love lies a-bleeding here, Evadne, there
 Swells with brave rage, yet comely everywhere;
 Here's A mad lover, there that high design
 Of King and no King, and the rare plot thine.
 So that whene'er we circumvolve our eyes,
 Such rich, such fresh, such sweet varieties
 Ravish our spirits, that entranc'd we see
 None writes love's passion in the world like thee.

THE NEW CHARON:

Upon the Death of Henry, Lord Hastings.

The musical part being set by Mr. Henry Lawes.

The Speakers,

charon and eucosmia.

Euc. Charon, O Charon, draw thy boat to th' shore,
 And to thy many take in one soul more.
 Cha. Who calls? who calls? Euc. One overwhelm'd with ruth;
 Have pity either on my tears or youth,
 And take me in who am in deep distress;
 But first cast off thy wonted churlishness.
 Cha. I will be gentle as that air which yields
 A breath of balm along the Elysian fields.
 Speak, what art thou? Euc. One once that had a lover,
 Than which thyself ne'er wafted sweeter over.
 He was—— Cha. Say what? Euc. Ah me, my woes are deep.
 Cha. Prithee relate, while I give ear and weep.
 Euc. He was a Hastings; and that one name has
 In it all good that is, and ever was.
 He was my life, my love, my joy, but died
 Some hours before I should have been his bride.
 Chorus.   Thus, thus the gods celestial still decree,
 For human joy contingent misery.
 Euc. The hallowed tapers all prepared were,
 And Hymen call'd to bless the rites. Cha. Stop there.
 Euc. Great are my woes. Cha. And great must that grief be
 That makes grim Charon thus to pity thee.
 But now come in. Euc. More let me yet relate.
 Cha. I cannot stay; more souls for waftage wait
 And I must hence. Euc. Yet let me thus much know,
 Departing hence, where good and bad souls go?
 Cha. Those souls which ne'er were drench'd in pleasure's stream,
 The fields of Pluto are reserv'd for them;
 Where, dress'd with garlands, there they walk the ground
 Whose blessed youth with endless flowers is crown'd.
 But such as have been drown'd in this wild sea,
 For those is kept the Gulf of Hecate,
 Where with their own contagion they are fed,
 And there do punish and are punished.
 This known, the rest of thy sad story tell
 When on the flood that nine times circles hell.
 Chorus.   We sail along to visit mortals never;
 But there to live where love shall last for ever.

EPITAPH ON THE TOMB OF SIR EDWARD GILES
AND HIS WIFE IN THE SOUTH AISLE OF
DEAN PRIOR CHURCH, DEVON.

No trust to metals nor to marbles, when
 These have their fate and wear away as men;
 Times, titles, trophies may be lost and spent,
 But virtue rears the eternal monument.
 What more than these can tombs or tombstones pay?
 But here's the sunset of a tedious day:
 These two asleep are: I'll but be undress'd
 And so to bed: pray wish us all good rest.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] His spaniel. (Note in the original edition.)

[B] MS. blesses.

[C] MS. lye.

[D] MS. blessed.

[E] MS. beauteous.

[F] W.R. vein'd.

NOTES.

NOTES.

569. And of any wood ye see, You can make a Mercury. Pythagoras allegorically said that Mercury's statue could not be made of every sort of wood: cp. Rabelais, iv. 62.

575. The Apparition of his Mistress calling him to Elysium. An earlier version of this poem was printed in the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems under the title, His Mistris Shade, having been licensed for separate publication at Stationers' Hall the previous year. The variants are numerous, and some of them important. l. 1, of silver for with silv'rie; l. 3, on the Banks for in the Meads; l. 8, Spikenard through for Storax from; l. 10 reads: "Of mellow Apples, ripened Plums and Pears": l. 17, the order of "naked younglings, handsome striplings" is reversed; in place of l. 20 we have:—

"So soon as each his dangling locks hath crown'd
 With Rosie Chaplets, Lilies, Pansies red,
 Soft Saffron Circles to perfume the head";

l. 23, to for too unto; l. 24, their for our; ll. 29, 30:—

"Unto the Prince of Shades, whom once his Pen
 Entituled the Grecian Prince of Men";

l. 31, thereupon for and that done; l. 36, render him true for show him truly; l. 37, will for shall; l. 38, "Where both may laugh, both drink, both rage together"; l. 48, Amphitheatre for spacious theatre; l. 49, synod for glories, followed by:—

"crown'd with sacred Bays
 And flatt'ring joy, we'll have to recite their plays,
 Shakespeare and Beamond, Swans to whom the Spheres
 Listen while they call back the former year[s]
 To teach the truth of scenes, and more for thee,
 There yet remains, brave soul, than thou can'st see,"
 etc.;

l. 56, illustrious for capacious; l. 57, shall be for now is [Jonson died 1637]; ll. 59-61:—

"To be of that high Hierarchy where none
 But brave souls take illumination
 Immediately from heaven; but hark the cock," etc.;

l. 62, feel for see; l. 63, through for from.

579. My love will fit each history. Cp. Ovid, Amor. II. iv. 44: Omnibus historiis se meus aptat amor.

580. The sweets of love are mixed with tears. Cp. Propert. I. xii. 16: Nonnihil adspersis gaudet Amor lacrimis.

583. Whom this morn sees most fortunate, etc. Seneca, Thyest. 613: Quem dies vidit veniens superbum Hunc dies vidit fugiens jacentem.

586. Night hides our thefts, etc. Ovid, Ars Am. i. 249:—

Nocte latent mendæ vitioque ignoscitur omni,
 Horaque formosam quamlibet illa facit.

590. To his brother-in-law, Master John Wingfield. Of Brantham, Suffolk, husband of the poet's sister, Mercy. See 818, and Sketch of Herrick's Life in vol. i.

599. Upon Lucia. Cp. "The Resolution" in Speculum Amantis, ed. A. H. Bullen.

604. Old Religion. Certainly not Roman Catholicism, though Jonson was a Catholic. Herrick uses the noun and its adjective rather curiously of the dead: cp. 82, "To the reverend shade of his religious Father," and 138, "When thou shalt laugh at my religious dust". There may be something of this use here, or we may refer to his ancient cult of Jonson. But the use of the phrase in 870 makes the exact shade of meaning difficult to fix.

605. Riches to be but burdens to the mind. Seneca De Provid. 6: Democritus divitias projecit, onus illas bonae mentis existimans.

607. Who covets more is evermore a slave. Hor. I. Ep. x. 41: Serviet aeternum qui parvo nesciet uti.

615. No Wrath of Men. Cp. Hor. Od. III. iii. 1-8.

616. To the Maids to walk abroad. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, under the title: Abroad with the Maids.

618. Mistress Elizabeth Lee, now Lady Tracy. Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas, first Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire, married John, third Viscount Tracy. She survived her husband two years, and died in 1688.

624. Poets. Wantons we are, etc. From Ovid, Trist. ii. 353-4:—

Crede mihi, mores distant a carmine nostri:
 Vita verecunda est, Musa jocosa, mihi.

625. 'Tis cowardice to bite the buried. Cp. Ben Jonson, The Poetaster, I. 1: "Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite"; perhaps from Ovid, Am. I. xv. 39: Pascitur in vivis livor; post fata quiescit.

626. Noble Westmoreland. See Note to 112.

Gallant Newark. Robert Pierrepoint was created Viscount Newark in 1627 and Earl of Kingston in the following year. But Herrick is perhaps addressing his son, Henry Pierrepoint, afterwards Marquis of Dorchester (see 962 and Note), who during the first Earl of Kingston's life would presumably have borne his second title.

633. Sweet words must nourish soft and gentle love. Ovid, Ars Am. ii. 152: Dulcibus est verbis mollis alendus amor.

639. Fates revolve no flax they've spun. Seneca, Herc. Fur. 1812: Duræ peragunt pensa sorores, Nec sua retro fila revolvunt.

642. Palms ... gems. A Latinism. Cp. Ovid, Fasti, i. 152: Et nova de gravido palmite gemma tumet.

645. Upon Tears. Cp. S. Bernard: Pœnitentium lacrimæ vinum angelorum.

649. Upon Lucy. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, under the title, On Betty.

653. To th' number five or nine. Probably Herrick is mistaking the references in Greek and Latin poets to the mixing of their wine and water (e.g., Hor. Od. III. xix. 11-17) for the drinking of so many cups.

654. Long-looked-for comes at last. Cp. G. Herbert, preface to Sibbes' Funeral Sermon on Sir Thomas Crew (1638): "That ancient adage, 'Quod differtur non aufertur' for 'Long-looked-for comes at last'".

655. The morrow's life too late is, etc. Mart. I. xvi. 12: Sera nimis vita est crastina: vive hodie.

662. O happy life, etc. From Virg. Georg. ii. 458-9:—

O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint
 Agricolas.

It is not uncharacteristic that these fervid praises of country life were left unfinished.

664. Arthur Bartly. Not yet identified.

665. Let her Lucrece all day be. From Martial XI. civ. 21, 22:—

Lucretia toto
 Sis licet usque die: Laida nocte volo.

Neither will Famish me, nor overfill. Mart. I. lviii. 4: Nec volo quod cruciat, nec volo quod satiat.

667. Be't for my Bridal or my Burial. Cp. Brand, vol. ii., and Coles' Introduction to the Knowledge of Plants: "Rosemary and bayes are used by the commons both at funerals and weddings".

672. Kings ought to be more lov'd than fear'd. Seneca, Octavia, 459: Decet timeri Cæsarem. At plus diligi.

673. To Mr. Denham, on his prospective poem. Sir John Denham published in 1642 his Cooper's Hill, a poem on the view over the Thames towards London, from a hill near Windsor.

675. Their fashion is, but to say no, etc. Cp. Montaigne's Essais, II. 3, p. 51; Florio's tr. p. 207: "Let it suffice that in doing it they say no and take it".

676. Love is maintained by wealth. Ovid, Rem. Am. 746: Divitiis alitur luxuriosus amor.

679. Nero commanded, but withdrew his eyes. Tacit. Agric. 45: Nero subtraxit oculos, jussitque scelera, non spectavit.

683. But a just measure both of Heat and Cold. This is a version of the medieval doctrine of the four humours. So Chaucer says of his Doctor of Physic:—

"He knew the cause of every maladye,
 Were it of hoot or cold, or moyste, or drye,
 And where engendered and of what humour".

684. 'Gainst thou go'st a-mothering. The Epistle for Mid-Lent Sunday was from Galat. iv. 21, etc., and contained the words: "Jerusalem, quæ est Mater nostra". On that Sunday people made offerings at their Mother Church. After the Reformation the natural mother was substituted for the spiritual, and the day was set apart for visiting relations. Excellent simnel cakes (Low Lat., siminellus, fine flour) are still made in the North, where the current derivation of the word is from Sim and Nell!

685. To the King. Probably written in 1645, when Charles was for a short time in the West.

689. Too much she gives to some, enough to none. Mart. XII. x.; Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli.

696. Men mind no state in sickness. There is a general resemblance in this poem to the latter part of Hor. III. Od. i., but I have an uneasy sense that Herrick is translating.

697. Adversity. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650.

702. Mean things overcome mighty. Cp. 486 and Note.

706. How roses came red. Cp. Burton, Anat. Mel. III. ii. 3: "Constantine (Agricult. xi. 18) makes Cupid himself to be a great dancer: by the same token that he was capering among the gods, he flung down a bowl of nectar, which, distilling upon the white rose, ever since made it red".

709. Tears and Laughter. Bishop Jebb quotes a Latin couplet inscribed on an old inn at Four Crosses, Staffordshire:—

Fleres si scires unum tua tempora mensem:
 Rides, cum non sit forsitan una dies.

710. Tully says. Cic. Tusc. Disp. III. ii. 3: Gloria est frequens de aliquo, fama cum laude.

713. His return to London. Written at the same time as his Farewell to Dean Bourn, i.e., after his ejection in 1648, the year of the publication of the Hesperides.

715. No pack like poverty. Burton, Anat. Mel. iii. 3: Οὐδὲν πενίας βαρύτερόν ἐστι φόρτιον. "No burden, saith Menander, is so intolerable as poverty."

718. As many laws, etc. Tacit. Ann. iii. 27: Corruptissima in republica plurimæ leges.

723. Lay down some silver pence. Cp. Bishop Corbet's The Faeryes Farewell:—

"And though they sweep their hearths no less
 Than maids were wont to do,
 Yet who of late for cleanliness
 Finds sixpence in her shoe?"

725. Times that are ill ... Clouds will not ever, etc., two reminiscences of Horace, II. Od. x. 17, and ix.

727. Up tails all. This tune will be found in Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. i. p. 196. He notes that it was a favourite with Herrick, who wrote four other poems in the metre, viz.: The Hag is Astride, The Maypole is up, The Peter-penny, and Twelfth Night: or, King and Queen. The tune is found in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and in the Dancing Master (1650-1690). It is alluded to by Ben Jonson, and was a favourite with the Cavaliers.

730. Charon and Philomel. This dialogue is found with some slight variations of text in Rawlinson's MS. poet. 65. fol. 32. The following variants may be noted: l. 5, voice for sound; l. 7, shade for bird; l. 11, warbling for watching; l. 12, hoist up for thus hoist; l. 13, be gone for return; l. 18, praise for pray; l. 19, sighs for vows; l. 24, omit slothful. The dialogue is succeeded in the MS. by an old catch (probably written before Herrick was born):—

"A boat! a boat! haste to the ferry!
 For we go over to be merry,
 To laugh and quaff, and drink old sherry".

After the catch comes the following dialogue, written (it would seem) in imitation of Herrick's Charon and Philomel: the speakers' names are not marked:—

"Charon! O Charon! the wafter of all souls to bliss or bane!
 Who calls the ferryman of Hell?
 Come near and say who lives in bliss and who in pain.
 Those that die well eternal bliss shall follow.
 Those that die ill their own black deeds shall swallow.
 Shall thy black barge those guilty spirits row
 That kill themselves for love? Oh, no! oh, no!
 My cordage cracks when such foul sins draw near,
 No wind blows fair, nor I my boat can steer.
 What spirits pass and in Elysium reign?
 Those harmless souls that love and are beloved again.
 That soul that lives in love and fain would die to win,
 Shall he go free? Oh, no! it is too foul a sin.
 He must not come aboard, I dare not row,
 Storms of despair my boat will overblow.
 But when thy mistress (?) shall close up thine eyes then come aboard,
 Then come aboard and pass; till then be wise and sing."

"Then come aboard" from the penultimate line and "and sing" from the last should clearly be struck out.

739. O Jupiter, etc. Eubulus in Athenaeus, xiii. 559: Ὠ Ζεῦ πολυτίμητ', εἶτ' ἐγὼ κακῶς ποτε | ἐρῶ γυναῖκας; νὴ Δί' ἀπολοίμην ἄρα· | πάντων ἄριστον κτημάτων. Comp. 885.

743. Another upon her Weeping. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, under the title: On Julia's Weeping.

745. To Sir John Berkeley, Governour of Exeter. Youngest son of Sir Maurice Berkeley, of Bruton, in Somersetshire; knighted in Berwick in 1638; commander-in-chief of all the Royalist forces in Devonshire, 1643; captured Exeter Sept. 4 of that year, and held it till April 13, 1646. Created Baron Berkeley of Stratton, in Cornwall, 1658; died 1678.

749. Consultation. As noted in the text, this is from Sallust, Cat. i.

751. None sees the fardell of his faults behind. Cp. Catullus, xxii. 20, 21:—

Suus cuique attributus est error,
 Sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est,

or, perhaps more probably from Seneca, de Irá, ii. 28: Aliena vitia in oculis habemus; à tergo nostra sunt.

755. The Eye. Æschyl. Fragm. in Plutarch, Amat. 21: Νέας γυναικὸς οὔ με μὴ λάθῃ φλέγων Ὀφθαλμὸς, ἥτις ἀνδρὸς ᾖ γεγευμένη.

756. To Prince Charles upon his coming to Exeter. In August, 1645.

761. The Wake. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, under the title: Alvar and Anthea.

763. To Doctor Alabaster. William Alabaster, or Alablaster, born at Hadleigh, Suffolk (1567); educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge; a friend of Spencer; was converted to Roman Catholicism while chaplain to the Earl of Essex in Spain, 1596. In 1607 he began his series of apocalyptic writings by an Apparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi. On visiting Rome he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, escaped, and returned to Protestantism. Besides his theological works, he published (in 1637) a Lexicon Pentaglotton. Died April, 1640.

766. Time is the bound of things, etc. From Seneca, Consol. ad Marc. xix.: Excessit filius tuus terminos intra quos servitur ... mors omnium dolorum solutio est et finis.

771. As I have read must be the first man up, etc. Hor. I. Ep. vi. 48: Hoc primus repetas opus, hoc postremus omittas.

Rich compost. Cp. the same thought in 662.

772. A Hymn to Bacchus. Printed, with the misprint Bacchus for Iacchus in l. 1, in Witts Recreations, 1650.

Brutus ... Cato. Cp. Note to 4 and 8.

774. If wars go well, etc. Tacitus, Ann. iii. 53: cùm rectè factorum sibi quisque gratiam trahant, unius [Principis scil.] invidiâ ab omnibus peccatur.

775. Niggards of the meanest blood. Seneca, de Clem. i. 1: Summa parsimonia etiam vilissimi sanguinis.

776. Wrongs, if neglected, etc. Tacit. Ann. iv. 34: [Probra] spreta exolescunt, si irascare agnita videntur.

780. Kings ought to shear, etc. A saying of Tiberius quoted by Suetonius: Boni pastoris est tondere oves, non deglubere. Herrick probably took it from Ben Jonson's Discoveries.

784-7. Ceremonies for Christmas. More will be found about the Yule-log in Ceremonies for Candlemas Day (893); cp. also The Wassail (476).

788. Power and Peace. From Tacitus, Ann. iv. 4: Quanquam arduum sit eodem loci potentiam et concordiam esse.

789. Mistress Margaret Falconbridge. A daughter, probably, of the Thomas Falconbridge of number 483.

797. Kisses. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1650, with omission of me in l. 1.

804. John Crofts, Cup-bearer to the King. Third son of Sir John Crofts, of Saxham, Suffolk. We hear of him in the king's service as early as 1628, and two years later Lord Conway, in thanking Wm. Weld for some verses sent him, hopes "the lines are strong enough to bind Robert Maule and Jack Crofts from ever more using the phrase". So Jack was probably a bit of a poet himself. He may be the Mr. Crofts for assaulting whom George, Lord Digby, was imprisoned a month and more, in 1634.

807. Man may want land to live in. Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 56: Addidit [Boiocalus] Deësse nobis terra in quâ vivamus, in quâ moriamur non potest, quoted by Montaigne, II. 3.

809. Who after his transgression doth repent. Seneca, Agam. 243: Quem poenitet peccasse paene est innocens.

810. Grief, if't be great 'tis short. Seneca, quoted by Burton (II. iii. 1, § 1): "Si longa est, levis est; si gravis est, brevis est. If it be long, 'tis light; if grievous, it cannot last."

817. The Amber Bead. Cp. Martial's epigram quoted in Note to 497. The comparison to Cleopatra is from Mart. IV. xxxii.

818. To my dearest sister, M. Mercy Herrick. Not quite five years his senior. She married John Wingfield, of Brantham, Suffolk, to whom also Herrick addresses a poem.

820. Suffer that thou canst not shift. From Seneca; the title from Ep. cvii.: Optimum est pati quod emendare non possis, the epigram from De Provid. 4, as translated by Thomas Lodge, 1614, "Vertuous instructions are never delicate. Doth fortune beat and rend us? Let us suffer it"—whence Herrick reproduces the printer's error, Vertuous for Vertues (Virtue's).

821. For a stone has Heaven his tomb. Cp. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. § 40: "Nor doe I altogether follow that rodomontado of Lucan (Phars. vii. 819): Coelo tegitur qui non habet urnam,