How Marigolds Came Yellow.

Jealous girls these sometimes were,
While they liv'd or lasted here:
Turn'd to flowers, still they be
Yellow, mark'd for jealousy.

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 Pearch. Epig.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

A Song To The Maskers.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To His Book.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Skurf.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Thy Flowers Change Colour

These fresh beauties, we can prove,
Once were virgins, sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers: still in some,
Colours go and colours come.

Robert Herrick

To Marigolds.

Give way, and be ye ravish'd by the sun,
And hang the head whenas the act is done,
Spread as he spreads, wax less as he does wane;
And as he shuts, close up to maids again.

Robert Herrick

Why Flowers Change Colour

These fresh beauties, we can prove,
Once were virgins, sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers: still in some,
Colours go and colours come.

Robert Herrick

How Primroses Came Green.

Virgins, time-past, known were these,
Troubled with green-sicknesses:
Turn'd to flowers, still the hue,
Sickly girls, they bear of you.

Robert Herrick

The Marigold

When with a serious musing I behold
The grateful and obsequious marigold,
How duly every morning she displays
Her open breast, when Titan spreads his rays;
How she observes him in his daily walk,
Still bending towards him her small slender stalk;
How when he down declines, she droops and mourns,
Bedewed, as 'twere with tears, till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone,
As if she scornèd to be lookèd on
By an inferior eye; or did contemn
To wait upon a meaner light than him.
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries,
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow....

George Wither

To A Bed Of Tulips.

Bright tulips, we do know
You had your coming hither,
And fading-time does show
That ye must quickly wither.

Your sisterhoods may stay,
And smile here for your hour;
But die ye must away,
Even as the meanest flower.

Come, virgins, then, and see
Your frailties, and bemoan ye;
For, lost like these, 'twill be
As time had never known ye.

Robert Herrick