Art Above Nature: To Julia

When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which, like a pinnacle, doth shew
The top, and the top-gallant too;
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an oval, square, or round,
And knit in knots far more than I.
Can tell by tongue, or True-love tie;
Next, when those lawny films I see
Play with a wild civility;
And all those airy silks to flow,
Alluring me, and tempting so,
I must confess, mine eye and heart
Dotes less on nature than on art.

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

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Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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On Julia's Picture.

How am I ravish'd! when I do but see
The painter's art in thy sciography?
If so, how much more shall I dote thereon
When once he gives it incarnation?

Robert Herrick

To Julia

How rich and pleasing thou, my Julia, art,
In each thy dainty and peculiar part!
First, for thy Queen-ship on thy head is set
Of flowers a sweet commingled coronet;
About thy neck a carkanet is bound,
Made of the Ruby, Pearl, and Diamond;
A golden ring, that shines upon thy thumb;
About thy wrist the rich Dardanium;
Between thy breasts, than down of swans more white,
There plays the Sapphire with the Chrysolite.
No part besides must of thyself be known,
But by the Topaz, Opal, Calcedon.

Robert Herrick

Upon His Julia.

Will ye hear what I can say
Briefly of my Julia?
Black and rolling is her eye,
Double-chinn'd and forehead high;
Lips she has all ruby red,
Cheeks like cream enclareted;
And a nose that is the grace
And proscenium of her face.
So that we may guess by these
The other parts will richly please.

Robert Herrick

To Julia, In Her Dawn, Or Daybreak.

By the next kindling of the day,
My Julia, thou shalt see,
Ere Ave-Mary thou canst say
I'll come and visit thee.

Yet ere thou counsel'st with thy glass,
Appear thou to mine eyes
As smooth, and nak'd, as she that was
The prime of paradise.

If blush thou must, then blush thou through
A lawn, that thou mayst look
As purest pearls, or pebbles do
When peeping through a brook.

As lilies shrin'd in crystal, so
Do thou to me appear;
Or damask roses when they grow
To sweet acquaintance there.

Robert Herrick

To ----

Lines written after a summer day's excursion.


Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,
Her mysteries are told;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!

Thanks for the courtesy, and gay
Good-humor, which on Washing Day
Our ill-timed visit bore;
Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke
The morning dreams of Artichoke,
Along his wooded shore!

Varied as varying Nature's ways,
Sprites of the river, woodland fays,
Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;
Free-limbed Dianas on the green,
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,
Upon your favorite stream.

The forms of which the poets told,
The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as yo...

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Description Of A Woman.

Whose head, befringed with bescattered tresses,
Shows like Apollo's when the morn he dresses,^[B]
Or like Aurora when with pearl she sets
Her long, dishevell'd, rose-crown'd trammelets:
Her forehead smooth, full, polish'd, bright and high
Bears in itself a graceful majesty,
Under the which two crawling eyebrows twine
Like to the tendrils of a flatt'ring vine,
Under whose shade two starry sparkling eyes
Are beautifi'd with fair fring'd canopies.
Her comely nose, with uniformal grace,
Like purest white, stands in the middle place,
Parting the pair, as we may well suppose.
Each cheek resembling still a damask rose,
Which like a garden manifestly show
How roses, lilies, and carnations grow,
Which sweetly mixed both with white and red,
Like rose leav...

Robert Herrick