A Hymn To The Muses

Honour to you who sit
Near to the well of wit,
And drink your fill of it!

Glory and worship be
To you, sweet Maids, thrice three,
Who still inspire me;

And teach me how to sing
Unto the lyric string,
My measures ravishing!

Then, while I sing your praise,
My priest-hood crown with bays
Green to the end of days!

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

Upon Grudgings.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Fair Days: Or, Dawns Deceitful.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To His Book.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Grief.

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.

On Hymn To The Muse

Honour to you who sit
Near to the well of wit,
And drink your fill of it!

Glory and worship be
To you, sweet Maids, thrice three,
Who still inspire me;

And teach me how to sing
Unto the lyric string,
My measures ravishing!

Then, while I sing your praise,
My priest-hood crown with bays
Green to the end of days!

Robert Herrick

A Hymn To The Muses.

O you the virgins nine!
That do our souls incline
To noble discipline!
Nod to this vow of mine.
Come, then, and now inspire
My viol and my lyre
With your eternal fire,
And make me one entire
Composer in your choir.
Then I'll your altars strew
With roses sweet and new;
And ever live a true
Acknowledger of you.

Robert Herrick

A Hymn To The Graces

When I love, as some have told
Love I shall, when I am old,
O ye Graces!make me fit
For the welcoming of it!
Clean my rooms, as temples be,
To entertain that deity;
Give me words wherewith to woo,
Suppling and successful too;
Winning postures; and withal,
Manners each way musical;
Sweetness to allay my sour
And unsmooth behaviour:
For I know you have the skill
Vines to prune, though not to kill;
And of any wood ye see,
You can make a Mercury.

Robert Herrick

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.

Robert Herrick

To His Worthy Friend, M. John Hall, Student Of Gray's Inn.

Tell me, young man, or did the Muses bring
Thee less to taste than to drink up their spring,
That none hereafter should be thought, or be
A poet, or a poet-like but thee?
What was thy birth, thy star that makes thee known,
At twice ten years, a prime and public one?
Tell us thy nation, kindred, or the whence
Thou had'st and hast thy mighty influence,
That makes thee lov'd, and of the men desir'd,
And no less prais'd than of the maids admired.
Put on thy laurel then; and in that trim
Be thou Apollo or the type of him:
Or let the unshorn god lend thee his lyre,
And next to him be master of the choir.

Robert Herrick

The Mount Of The Muses.

After thy labour take thine ease,
Here with the sweet Pierides.
But if so be that men will not
Give thee the laurel crown for lot;
Be yet assur'd, thou shall have one
Not subject to corruption.

Robert Herrick