Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
"Compared to such contemporaries as John Donne and George Herbert, Herrick seems light and tripping, going out of his way to demonstrate no very complex philosophical thought or religious passion (though his devotional verses are suitably austere), and never writing a love poem that speaks profoundly or intimately of the beloved."
--Thomas Crofts in The Cavalier Poets: An Anthology
- The Argument of His Book (University of Toronto)
- The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad (University of Toronto)
- Dean Bourn, a Rude River in Devon, by Which Sometimes He Lived
- To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton
Visit Anniina Jokinen's Robert Herrick page.
Dean Bourn, a Rude River in Devon, by Which Sometimes He Lived
- Dean Bourn, farewell; I never look to see
- Dean, or thy warty incivility.
- Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams
- And makes them frantic, ev'n to all extremes;
- To my content, I never should behold,
- Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
- Rocky thou art; and rocky we discover
- Thy men; and rocky are thy ways all over.
- O men, O manners; now, and ever known
- To be a rocky generation!
- A people currish; churlish as the seas;
- And rude (almost) as rudest savages.
- With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when
- Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men.
To His Honoured and Most Ingenious Friend Mr. Charles Cotton
- For brave comportment, wit without offence,
- Words fully flowing, yet of influence:
- Thou art that man of men, the man alone,
- Worthy the public admiration:
- Who with thine own eyes read'st what we do write,
- And giv'st our numbers euphony, and weight.
- Tell'st when a verse springs high, how understood
- To be, or not born of the Royal blood.
- What state above, what symmetry below,
- Lines have, or should have, thou the best canst show.
- For which (my Charles) it is my pride to be,
- Not so much known, as to be loved by thee.
- Long may I live so, and my wreath of bays,
- Be less another's laurel, than thy praise.
