Come bring your sampler, and with art
 Draw in't a wounded heart
 And dropping here and there:
 Not that I think that any dart
 Can make yours bleed a tear,
 Or pierce it anywhere;
 Yet do it to this end: that I
 May by
 This secret see,
 Though you can make
 That heart to bleed, yours ne'er will ache
 For me.

21. NO LOATHSOMENESS IN LOVE.

What I fancy I approve,
 No dislike there is in love.
 Be my mistress short or tall,
 And distorted therewithal:
 Be she likewise one of those
 That an acre hath of nose:
 Be her forehead and her eyes
 Full of incongruities:
 Be her cheeks so shallow too
 As to show her tongue wag through;
 Be her lips ill hung or set,
 And her grinders black as jet:
 Has she thin hair, hath she none,
 She's to me a paragon.

22. TO ANTHEA.

If, dear Anthea, my hard fate it be
 To live some few sad hours after thee,
 Thy sacred corse with odours I will burn,
 And with my laurel crown thy golden urn.
 Then holding up there such religious things
 As were, time past, thy holy filletings,
 Near to thy reverend pitcher I will fall
 Down dead for grief, and end my woes withal:
 So three in one small plat of ground shall lie—
 Anthea, Herrick, and his poetry.

23. THE WEEPING CHERRY.

I saw a cherry weep, and why?
 Why wept it? but for shame
 Because my Julia's lip was by,
 And did out-red the same.
 But, pretty fondling, let not fall
 A tear at all for that:
 Which rubies, corals, scarlets, all
 For tincture wonder at.

24. SOFT MUSIC.

The mellow touch of music most doth wound
 The soul when it doth rather sigh than sound.

25. THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT KINGS AND SUBJECTS.

'Twixt kings and subjects there's this mighty odds:
 Subjects are taught by men; kings by the gods.

26. HIS ANSWER TO A QUESTION.

Some would know
 Why I so
 Long still do tarry,
 And ask why
 Here that I
 Live and not marry.
 Thus I those
 Do oppose:
 What man would be here
 Slave to thrall,
 If at all
 He could live free here?

27. UPON JULIA'S FALL.

Julia was careless, and withal
 She rather took than got a fall,
 The wanton ambler chanc'd to see
 Part of her legs' sincerity:
 And ravish'd thus, it came to pass,
 The nag (like to the prophet's ass)
 Began to speak, and would have been
 A-telling what rare sights he'd seen:
 And had told all; but did refrain
 Because his tongue was tied again.

28. EXPENSES EXHAUST.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
 Small shots paid often waste a vast estate.

Shots, debts.

29. LOVE, WHAT IT IS.

Love is a circle that doth restless move
 In the same sweet eternity of love.

30. PRESENCE AND ABSENCE.

When what is lov'd is present, love doth spring;
 But being absent, love lies languishing.

31. NO SPOUSE BUT A SISTER.

A bachelor I will
 Live as I have liv'd still,
 And never take a wife
 To crucify my life;
 But this I'll tell ye too,
 What now I mean to do:
 A sister (in the stead
 Of wife) about I'll lead;
 Which I will keep embrac'd,
 And kiss, but yet be chaste.

32. THE POMANDER BRACELET.

To me my Julia lately sent
 A bracelet richly redolent:
 The beads I kissed, but most lov'd her
 That did perfume the pomander.

Pomander, a ball of scent.

33. THE SHOE-TYING.

Anthea bade me tie her shoe;
 I did; and kissed the instep too:
 And would have kissed unto her knee,
 Had not her blush rebuked me.

34. THE CARCANET.

Instead of orient pearls of jet
 I sent my love a carcanet;
 About her spotless neck she knit
 The lace, to honour me or it:
 Then think how rapt was I to see
 My jet t'enthral such ivory.

Carcanet, necklace.
Lace, any kind of girdle; used here for the necklace.

35. HIS SAILING FROM JULIA.

When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone
 Unto that watery desolation,
 Devoutly to thy closet-gods then pray
 That my wing'd ship may meet no remora.
 Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
 And look upon our dreadful passages,
 Will from all dangers re-deliver me
 For one drink-offering poured out by thee.
 Mercy and truth live with thee! and forbear
 (In my short absence) to unsluice a tear;
 But yet for love's sake let thy lips do this,
 Give my dead picture one engendering kiss:
 Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
 In thy remembrance, Julia. So farewell.

Closet-gods, the Roman Lares.
Remora, the sea Lamprey or suckstone, believed to check the course of ships by clinging to their keels.

36. HOW THE WALL-FLOWER CAME FIRST, AND WHY
SO CALLED.

Why this flower is now call'd so,
 List, sweet maids, and you shall know.
 Understand, this firstling was
 Once a brisk and bonnie lass,
 Kept as close as Danaë was:
 Who a sprightly springall lov'd,
 And to have it fully prov'd,
 Up she got upon a wall,
 Tempting down to slide withal:
 But the silken twist untied,
 So she fell, and, bruis'd, she died.
 Love, in pity of the deed,
 And her loving-luckless speed,
 Turn'd her to this plant we call
 Now the flower of the wall.

Tempting, trying.

37. WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR.

These fresh beauties (we can prove)
 Once were virgins sick of love.
 Turn'd to flowers,—still in some
 Colours go and colours come.

38. TO HIS MISTRESS OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER
TOYING OR TALKING.

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play
 Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.
 You blame me too, because I can't devise
 Some sport to please those babies in your eyes:
 By love's religion, I must here confess it,
 The most I love when I the least express it.
 Small griefs find tongues: full casks are ever found
 To give (if any, yet) but little sound.
 Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,
 That chiding streams betray small depth below.
 So, when love speechless is, she doth express
 A depth in love and that depth bottomless.
 Now, since my love is tongueless, know me such
 Who speak but little 'cause I love so much.

Babies in your eyes, see Note.

39. UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESSES.

I have lost, and lately, these
 Many dainty mistresses:
 Stately Julia, prime of all:
 Sappho next, a principal:
 Smooth Anthea for a skin
 White, and heaven-like crystalline:
 Sweet Electra, and the choice
 Myrrha for the lute and voice:
 Next Corinna, for her wit,
 And the graceful use of it:
 With Perilla: all are gone;
 Only Herrick's left alone
 For to number sorrow by
 Their departures hence, and die.

40. THE DREAM.

Methought last night Love in an anger came
 And brought a rod, so whipt me with the same;
 Myrtle the twigs were, merely to imply
 Love strikes, but 'tis with gentle cruelty.
 Patient I was: Love pitiful grew then
 And strok'd the stripes, and I was whole again.
 Thus, like a bee, Love gentle still doth bring
 Honey to salve where he before did sting.

42. TO LOVE.

I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear
 My puling pipe to beat against thine ear.
 Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be;
 Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me.
 He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke,
 Submits his neck unto a second yoke.

43. ON HIMSELF.

Young I was, but now am old,
 But I am not yet grown cold;
 I can play, and I can twine
 'Bout a virgin like a vine:
 In her lap too I can lie
 Melting, and in fancy die;
 And return to life if she
 Claps my cheek, or kisseth me:
 Thus, and thus it now appears
 That our love outlasts our years.

44. LOVE'S PLAY AT PUSH-PIN.

Love and myself, believe me, on a day
 At childish push-pin, for our sport, did play;
 I put, he pushed, and, heedless of my skin,
 Love pricked my finger with a golden pin;
 Since which it festers so that I can prove
 'Twas but a trick to poison me with love:
 Little the wound was, greater was the smart,
 The finger bled, but burnt was all my heart.

Push-pin, a game in which pins are pushed with an endeavor to cross them.

45. THE ROSARY.

One ask'd me where the roses grew:
 I bade him not go seek,
 But forthwith bade my Julia show
 A bud in either cheek.

46. UPON CUPID.

Old wives have often told how they
 Saw Cupid bitten by a flea;
 And thereupon, in tears half drown'd,
 He cried aloud: Help, help the wound!
 He wept, he sobb'd, he call'd to some
 To bring him lint and balsamum,
 To make a tent, and put it in
 Where the stiletto pierced the skin;
 Which, being done, the fretful pain
 Assuaged, and he was well again.

Tent, a roll of lint for probing wounds.

47. THE PARCÆ; OR, THREE DAINTY DESTINIES:
THE ARMILLET.

Three lovely sisters working were,
 As they were closely set,
 Of soft and dainty maidenhair
 A curious armillet.
 I, smiling, asked them what they did,
 Fair Destinies all three,
 Who told me they had drawn a thread
 Of life, and 'twas for me.
 They show'd me then how fine 'twas spun,
 And I reply'd thereto,—
 "I care not now how soon 'tis done,
 Or cut, if cut by you".

48. SORROWS SUCCEED.

When one is past, another care we have:
 Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.

49. CHERRY-PIT.

Julia and I did lately sit
 Playing for sport at cherry-pit:
 She threw; I cast; and, having thrown,
 I got the pit, and she the stone.

Cherry-pit, a game in which cherry-stones were pitched into a small hole.

50. TO ROBIN REDBREAST.

Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
 With leaves and moss-work for to cover me:
 And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
 Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
 For epitaph, in foliage, next write this:
 Here, here the tomb of Robin Herrick is.

51. DISCONTENTS IN DEVON.

More discontents I never had
 Since I was born than here,
 Where I have been, and still am sad,
 In this dull Devonshire;
 Yet, justly too, I must confess
 I ne'er invented such
 Ennobled numbers for the press,
 Than where I loathed so much.

52. TO HIS PATERNAL COUNTRY.

O earth! earth! earth! hear thou my voice, and be
 Loving and gentle for to cover me:
 Banish'd from thee I live, ne'er to return,
 Unless thou giv'st my small remains an urn.

53. CHERRY-RIPE.

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.

54. TO HIS MISTRESSES.

Put on your silks, and piece by piece
 Give them the scent of ambergris;
 And for your breaths, too, let them smell
 Ambrosia-like, or nectarel;
 While other gums their sweets perspire,
 By your own jewels set on fire.

55. TO ANTHEA.

Now is the time, when all the lights wax dim;
 And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him
 Who was thy servant. Dearest, bury me
 Under that Holy-oak or Gospel-tree,
 Where, though thou see'st not, thou may'st think upon
 Me, when thou yearly go'st procession;
 Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb
 In which thy sacred relics shall have room.
 For my embalming, sweetest, there will be
 No spices wanting when I'm laid by thee.

Holy oak, the oak under which the minister read the Gospel in the procession round the parish bounds in Rogation week.

56. THE VISION TO ELECTRA.

I dreamed we both were in a bed
 Of roses, almost smothered:
 The warmth and sweetness had me there
 Made lovingly familiar,
 But that I heard thy sweet breath say,
 Faults done by night will blush by day.
 I kissed thee, panting, and, I call
 Night to the record! that was all.
 But, ah! if empty dreams so please,
 Love give me more such nights as these.

57. DREAMS.

Here we are all by day; by night we're hurl'd
 By dreams, each one into a sev'ral world.

58. AMBITION.

In man ambition is the common'st thing;
 Each one by nature loves to be a king.

59. HIS REQUEST TO JULIA.

Julia, if I chance to die
 Ere I print my poetry,
 I most humbly thee desire
 To commit it to the fire:
 Better 'twere my book were dead
 Than to live not perfected.

60. MONEY GETS THE MASTERY.

Fight thou with shafts of silver and o'ercome,
 When no force else can get the masterdom.

61. THE SCARE-FIRE.

Water, water I desire,
 Here's a house of flesh on fire;
 Ope the fountains and the springs,
 And come all to bucketings:
 What ye cannot quench pull down;
 Spoil a house to save a town:
 Better 'tis that one should fall,
 Than by one to hazard all.

Scare-fire, fire-alarm.

62. UPON SILVIA, A MISTRESS.

When some shall say, Fair once my Silvia was,
 Thou wilt complain, False now's thy looking-glass,
 Which renders that quite tarnished which was green,
 And priceless now what peerless once had been.
 Upon thy form more wrinkles yet will fall,
 And, coming down, shall make no noise at all.

Priceless, valueless.

63. CHEERFULNESS IN CHARITY; OR, THE SWEET
SACRIFICE.

'Tis not a thousand bullocks' thighs
 Can please those heav'nly deities,
 If the vower don't express
 In his offering cheerfulness.

65. SWEETNESS IN SACRIFICE.

'Tis not greatness they require
 To be offer'd up by fire;
 But 'tis sweetness that doth please
 Those Eternal Essences.

66. STEAM IN SACRIFICE.

If meat the gods give, I the steam
 High-towering will devote to them,
 Whose easy natures like it well,
 If we the roast have, they the smell.

67. UPON JULIA'S VOICE.

So smooth, so sweet, so silv'ry is thy voice,
 As, could they hear, the damn'd would make no noise,
 But listen to thee, walking in thy chamber,
 Melting melodious words to lutes of amber.

Amber, used here merely for any rich material: cp. "Treading on amber with their silver feet".

68. AGAIN.

When I thy singing next shall hear,
 I'll wish I might turn all to ear
 To drink in notes and numbers such
 As blessed souls can't hear too much;
 Then melted down, there let me lie
 Entranc'd and lost confusedly,
 And, by thy music stricken mute,
 Die and be turn'd into a lute.

69. ALL THINGS DECAY AND DIE.

All things decay with time: the forest sees
 The growth and downfall of her aged trees;
 That timber tall, which threescore lusters stood
 The proud dictator of the state-like wood,—
 I mean (the sovereign of all plants) the oak—
 Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver's stroke.

Lusters, the Roman reckoning of five years.

70. THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET MONTHS.

First, April, she with mellow showers
 Opens the way for early flowers;
 Then after her comes smiling May,
 In a more rich and sweet array;
 Next enters June, and brings us more
 Gems than those two that went before:
 Then (lastly) July comes, and she
 More wealth brings in than all those three.

71. NO SHIPWRECK OF VIRTUE. TO A FRIEND.

Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here;
 Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear;
 But trust to this, my noble passenger;
 Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure
 (Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure,
 And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.

Bulging, leaking.

72. UPON HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, MISTRESS ELIZABETH
HERRICK.

First, for effusions due unto the dead,
 My solemn vows have here accomplished:
 Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
 Wherein thou liv'st for ever. Dear, farewell.

Effusions, drink-offerings.

73. OF LOVE. A SONNET.

How love came in I do not know,
 Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
 Or whether with the soul it came
 (At first) infused with the same;
 Whether in part 'tis here or there,
 Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
 This troubles me: but I as well
 As any other this can tell:
 That when from hence she does depart
 The outlet then is from the heart.

74. TO ANTHEA.

Ah, my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
 (Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak.)
 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.
 But yet, though love likes well such scenes as these,
 There is an act that will more fully please:
 Kissing and glancing, soothing, all make way
 But to the acting of this private play:
 Name it I would; but, being blushing red,
 The rest I'll speak when we meet both in bed.

75. THE ROCK OF RUBIES, AND THE QUARRY OF
PEARLS.

Some ask'd me where the rubies grew,
 And nothing I did say:
 But with my finger pointed to
 The lips of Julia.
 Some ask'd how pearls did grow, and where;
 Then spoke I to my girl,
 To part her lips, and show'd them there
 The quarrelets of Pearl.

Quarrelets, little squares.

76. CONFORMITY.

Conformity was ever known
 A foe to dissolution:
 Nor can we that a ruin call,
 Whose crack gives crushing unto all.

77. TO THE KING, UPON HIS COMING WITH HIS ARMY
INTO THE WEST.

Welcome, most welcome to our vows and us,
 Most great and universal genius!
 The drooping West, which hitherto has stood
 As one in long-lamented widowhood,
 Looks like a bride now, or a bed of flowers
 Newly refresh'd both by the sun and showers.
 War, which before was horrid, now appears
 Lovely in you, brave prince of cavaliers!
 A deal of courage in each bosom springs
 By your access, O you the best of kings!
 Ride on with all white omens; so that where
 Your standard's up, we fix a conquest there.

78. UPON ROSES.

Under a lawn, than skies more clear,
 Some ruffled roses nestling were:
 And, snugging there, they seem'd to lie
 As in a flowery nunnery:
 They blush'd, and look'd more fresh than flowers
 Quicken'd of late by pearly showers,
 And all because they were possess'd
 But of the heat of Julia's breast:
 Which, as a warm and moisten'd spring,
 Gave them their ever-flourishing.

79. TO THE KING AND QUEEN UPON THEIR UNHAPPY
DISTANCES.

Woe, woe to them, who, by a ball of strife,
 Do, and have parted here a man and wife:
 Charles the best husband, while Maria strives
 To be, and is, the very best of wives,
 Like streams, you are divorc'd; but 'twill come when
 These eyes of mine shall see you mix again.
 Thus speaks the oak here; C. and M. shall meet,
 Treading on amber, with their silver-feet,
 Nor will't be long ere this accomplish'd be:
 The words found true, C. M., remember me.

Oak, the prophetic tree.

80. DANGERS WAIT ON KINGS.

As oft as night is banish'd by the morn,
 So oft we'll think we see a king new born.

81. THE CHEAT OF CUPID; OR, THE UNGENTLE
GUEST.

One silent night of late,
 When every creature rested,
 Came one unto my gate
 And, knocking, me molested.
Who's that, said I, beats there,
 And troubles thus the sleepy?
 Cast off, said he, all fear,
 And let not locks thus keep ye.
For I a boy am, who
 By moonless nights have swerved;
 And all with show'rs wet through,
 And e'en with cold half starved.
I pitiful arose,
 And soon a taper lighted;
 And did myself disclose
 Unto the lad benighted.
I saw he had a bow
 And wings, too, which did shiver;
 And, looking down below,
 I spied he had a quiver.
I to my chimney's shine
 Brought him, as Love professes,
 And chafed his hands with mine,
 And dried his drooping tresses.
But when he felt him warm'd:
 Let's try this bow of ours,
 And string, if they be harm'd,
 Said he, with these late showers.
Forthwith his bow he bent,
 And wedded string and arrow,
 And struck me, that it went
 Quite through my heart and marrow.
Then, laughing loud, he flew
 Away, and thus said, flying:
 Adieu, mine host, adieu,
 I'll leave thy heart a-dying.

82. TO THE REVEREND SHADE OF HIS RELIGIOUS
FATHER.

That for seven lusters I did never come
 To do the rites to thy religious tomb;
 That neither hair was cut, or true tears shed
 By me, o'er thee, as justments to the dead,
 Forgive, forgive me; since I did not know
 Whether thy bones had here their rest or no,
 But now 'tis known, behold! behold, I bring
 Unto thy ghost th' effused offering:
 And look what smallage, night-shade, cypress, yew,
 Unto the shades have been, or now are due,
 Here I devote; and something more than so;
 I come to pay a debt of birth I owe.
 Thou gav'st me life, but mortal; for that one
 Favour I'll make full satisfaction;
 For my life mortal rise from out thy hearse.
 And take a life immortal from my verse.

Seven lusters, five and thirty years.
Hair was cut, according to the Greek custom.
Justments, dues.
Smallage, water parsley.

83. DELIGHT IN DISORDER.

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.

84. TO HIS MUSE.

Were I to give thee baptism, I would choose
 To christen thee, the bride, the bashful Muse,
 Or Muse of roses: since that name does fit
 Best with those virgin-verses thou hast writ:
 Which are so clean, so chaste, as none may fear
 Cato the censor, should he scan each here.

85. UPON LOVE.