Excess.

Excess is sluttish: keep the mean; for why?
Virtue's clean conclave is sobriety.

Robert Herrick

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

English

Suggested Poems

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Virtue Best United.

By so much, virtue is the less,
By how much, near to singleness.

Robert Herrick

Expenses Exhaust.

Live with a thrifty, not a needy fate;
Small shots paid often waste a vast estate.

Robert Herrick

The Mean.

'Tis much among the filthy to be clean;
Our heat of youth can hardly keep the mean.

Robert Herrick

Virtue.

Each must in virtue strive for to excel;
That man lives twice that lives the first life well.

Robert Herrick

Pleasures Pernicious.

Where pleasures rule a kingdom, never there
Is sober virtue seen to move her sphere.

Robert Herrick

Evil.

Evil no nature hath; the loss of good
Is that which gives to sin a livelihood.

Robert Herrick