North And South.

The Jews their beds and offices of ease,
Placed north and south for these clean purposes;
That man's uncomely froth might not molest
God's ways and walks, which lie still east and west.

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

His Prayer To Ben Jonson

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Lucia.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon A Scar In A Virgin's Face.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

The Body.

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.

Observation.

Who to the north, or south, doth set
His bed, male children shall beget.

Robert Herrick

The North And The South

I
"Now give us lands where the olives grow,"
Cried the North to the South,
"Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow
Blow bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!"
Cried the North to the South.

"Now give us men from the sunless plain,"
Cried the South to the North,
"By need of work in the snow and rain,
Made strong, and brave by familiar pain!"
Cried the South to the North.

II
"Give lucider hills and intenser seas,"
Said the North to the South.
"Since ever by symbols and bright degrees
Art, childlike, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,"
Said the North to the South.

"Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer",
Said the South to the North,
"That stand in the dark on the lowest stair,
While affirming of God 'He is certainly th...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

To His Brother, Nicholas Herrick.

What others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,
Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,
And tell'st to us what once they were, and are.
So that with bold truth thou can'st now relate
This kingdom's fortune, and that empire's fate:
Can'st talk to us of Sharon, where a spring
Of roses have an endless flourishing;
Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them
Make known to us the new Jerusalem;
The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where
Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre.
So that the man that will but lay his ears
As inapostate to the thing he hears,
Shall by his hearing quickly come to see
The truth of travels less in books than thee....

Robert Herrick

Good And Bad.

The bad among the good are here mix'd ever;
The good without the bad are here plac'd never.

Robert Herrick

His Winding-sheet

Come thou, who art the wine and wit
Of all I've writ;
The grace, the glory, and the best
Piece of the rest;
Thou art of what I did intend
The All, and End;
And what was made, was made to meet.
Thee, thee my sheet.
Come then, and be to my chaste side
Both bed and bride.
We two, as reliques left, will have
One rest, one grave;
And, hugging close, we need not fear
Lust entering here,
Where all desires are dead or cold,
As is the mould;
And all affections are forgot,
Or trouble not.
Here, here the slaves and prisoners be
From shackles free;
And weeping widows, long opprest,
Do here find rest.
The wronged client ends his laws
Here, and his cause;
Here those long suits of Chancery lie
Quiet, or die;
And all Star-cham...

Robert Herrick

Upon Nodes.

Wherever Nodes does in the summer come,
He prays his harvest may be well brought home.
What store of corn has careful Nodes, think you,
Whose field his foot is, and whose barn his shoe?

Robert Herrick