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.

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 Gander. Epig.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

The Tinker's Song.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Pain Ends In Pleasure.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Death Ends All Woe.

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.

To Cherry-Blossoms.

Ye may simper, blush and smile,
And perfume the air awhile;
But, sweet things, ye must be gone,
Fruit, ye know, is coming on;
Then, ah! then, where is your grace,
Whenas cherries come in place?

Robert Herrick

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.

Robert Herrick

The Garden

There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
These cherries grow which none may buy,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rosebuds filled with snow.
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still;
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threatening with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till "Cherry-ripe" themselves do cry.

Thomas Campion

Cherry-Time

Cherries of the night are riper
Than the cherries pluckt at noon
Gather to your fairy piper
When he pipes his magic tune:
        Merry, merry,
        Take a cherry;
        Mine are sounder,
        Mine are rounder,
        Mine are sweeter
        For the eater
        Under the moon.
And you'll be fairies soon.

In the cherry pluckt at night,
With the dew of summer swelling,
There's a juice of pure delight,
Cool, dark, sweet, divinely smelling.
        Merry, merry,
        Take a cherry;
        Mine are sounder,
Mine are rounder
        Mine are sweeter
        For the eater
        In the moonlight.
And you'll be fairies quite.

When I sound the fairy call,
Gather here in silent meeting,
Chin ...

Robert von Ranke Graves

Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

Have ye beheld (with much delight)
A red rose peeping through a white?
Or else a cherry (double graced)
Within a lily? Centre placed?
Or ever marked the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half drowned in cream?
Or seen rich rubies blushing through
A pure smooth pearl, and orient too?
So like to this, nay all the rest,
Is each neat niplet of her breast.

Robert Herrick

The Ripest Peach

The ripest peach is highest on the tree -
And so her love, beyond the reach of me,
Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow
Her heart down to me where I worship now!

She looms aloft where every eye may see
The ripest peach is highest on the tree.
Such fruitage as her love I know, alas!
I may not reach here from the orchard grass.

I drink the sunshine showered past her lips
As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips.
The ripest peach is highest on the tree,
And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly.

Why - why do I not turn away in wrath
And pluck some heart here hanging in my path?
Lover's lower boughs bend with them - but, ah me!
The ripest peach is highest on the tree!

James Whitcomb Riley