A Bucolic, Or Discourse Of Neatherds.

1. Come, blitheful neatherds, let us lay
        A wager who the best shall play,
        Of thee or I, the roundelay
        That fits the business of the day.

Chor. And Lalage the judge shall be,
        To give the prize to thee, or me.

2. Content, begin, and I will bet
        A heifer smooth, and black as jet,
        In every part alike complete,
        And wanton as a kid as yet.

Chor. And Lalage, with cow-like eyes,
        Shall be disposeress of the prize.

1. Against thy heifer, I will here
        Lay to thy stake a lusty steer
        With gilded horns, and burnish'd clear.

Chor. Why, then, begin, and let us hear
        The soft, the sweet, the mellow note
        That gently purls from either's oat.

2. The stakes are laid: let's now apply
        Each one to make his melody.

Lal. The equal umpire shall be I,
        Who'll hear, and so judge righteously.

Chor. Much time is spent in prate; begin,
        And sooner play, the sooner win.

                    [1 Neatherd plays

2. That's sweetly touch'd, I must confess,
        Thou art a man of worthiness;
        But hark how I can now express
        My love unto my neatherdess.            [He sings

Chor. A sugar'd note! and sound as sweet
        As kine when they at milking meet.

1. Now for to win thy heifer fair,
        I'll strike thee such a nimble air
        That thou shalt say thyself 'tis rare,
        And title me without compare.

Chor. Lay by a while your pipes, and rest,
        Since both have here deserved best.

2. To get thy steerling, once again
        I'll play thee such another strain
        That thou shalt swear my pipe does reign
        Over thine oat as sovereign.            [He sings

Chor. And Lalage shall tell by this,
        Whose now the prize and wager is.

1.    Give me the prize. 2. The day is mine.
1.    Not so; my pipe has silenc'd thine:
        And hadst thou wager'd twenty kine,
        They were mine own. Lal. In love combine.

Chor. And lay ye down your pipes together,
        As weary, not o'ercome by either.

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is known for his book of poems, "Hesperides," which includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." His works are noted for their clarity, simplicity, and musical quality. Herrick was also a vicar of Dean Prior in Devon, despite being ejected during the English Civil War and later reinstated.

Robert Herrick

To Meadows

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Money Makes The Mirth

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To The Genius Of His House

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

A Christmas Carol, Sung To The King In The Presence At White-Hall

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Bucolic Betwixt Two: Lacon & Thyrsis

LACON:For a kiss or two, confess,
What doth cause this pensiveness,
Thou most lovely neat-herdess?
Why so lonely on the hill?
Why thy pipe by thee so still,
That erewhile was heard so shrill?
Tell me, do thy kine now fail
To fulfil the milking-pail?
Say, what is't that thou dost ail?

THYR:None of these; but out, alas!
A mischance is come to pass,
And I'll tell thee what it was:
See, mine eyes are weeping ripe.
LACON.Tell, and I'll lay down my pipe.

THYR:I have lost my lovely steer,
That to me was far more dear
Than these kine which I milk here;
Broad of forehead, large of eye,
Party-colour'd like a pye,
Smooth in each limb as a die;
Clear of hoof, and clear of horn,
Sharply pointed as a thorn;
With a neck by yoke unwor...

Robert Herrick

The Country Life:

TO THE HONOURED MR ENDYMION PORTER, GROOM OF
THE BED-CHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY

Sweet country life, to such unknown,
Whose lives are others', not their own!
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home:
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorched clove:
Nor, with the loss of thy loved rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No, thy ambition's master-piece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece:
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores: and so to end the year:
But walk'st about thine own dear bounds,
Not envying others' larger grounds:
For well thou know'st, 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.

Robert Herrick

An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq.

Tis not that I design to rob
Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob,
For thou art born sole heir, and single,
Of dear Mat Priors easy jingle;
Not that I mean, while thus I knit
My threadbare sentiments together,
To show my genius or my wit,
When God and you know I have neither;
Or such as might be better shown
By letting poetry alone.
Tis not with either of these views
That I presumed to address the muse:
But to divert a fierce banditti
(Sworn foes to every thing thats witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense;
The fierce banditti which I mean
Are gloomy thoughts led on by spleen.
Then theres another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly...

William Cowper

A Dialogue Between Two Shepherds

Uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton.

WILL.    Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.

DICK.    Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears another's sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw, yet lambkins love to play,
To play when that their loved dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men think I,
A lustless song forsooth thinks he that hath more lust to cry.

WILL.    A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tucked very high, with girls at football plays
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.

DICK.    Wha...

Philip Sidney

His Age: Dedicated To His Peculiar Friend, Mr John Wickes, Under The Name Of Postumus

Ah, Posthumus!    our years hence fly
And leave no sound:    nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks forward, scorns what's left behind;
Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
And here enjoy our holiday.

We've seen the past best times, and these
Will ne'er return; we see the seas,
And moons to wane,
But they fill up their ebbs again;
But vanish'd man,
Like to a lily lost, ne'er can,
Ne'er can repullulate, or bring
His days...

Robert Herrick

The Horkey. A Provincial Ballad.

In the descriptive ballad which follows, it will be evident that I have endeavoured to preserve the style of a gossip, and to transmit the memorial of a custom, the extent or antiquity of which I am not acquainted with, and pretend not to enquire.

In Suffolk husbandry the man who, (whether by merit or by sufferance I know not) goes foremost through the harvest with the scythe or the sickle, is honoured with the title of "Lord," and at the Horkey, or harvest-home feast, collects what he can, for himself and brethren, from the farmers and visitors, to make a "frolick" afterwards, called "the largess spending." By way of returning thanks, though perhaps formerly of much more, or of different signification, they immediately leave the seat of festivity, and with a very long and repeated shout of "a largess," the number of sho...

Robert Bloomfield