The Bedman, Or Gravemaker.

Thou hast made many houses for the dead;
When my lot calls me to be buried,
For love or pity, prithee let there be
I' th' churchyard made one tenement for me.

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

A Vow To Venus

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Oberon's Feast

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Of Love.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To Dianeme

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Upon An Old Man: A Residentiary.

Tread, sirs, as lightly as ye can
Upon the grave of this old man.
Twice forty, bating but one year
And thrice three weeks, he lived here.
Whom gentle fate translated hence
To a more happy residence.
Yet, reader, let me tell thee this,
Which from his ghost a promise is,
If here ye will some few tears shed,
He'll never haunt ye now he's dead.

Robert Herrick

Burial

Man may want land to live in; but for all
Nature finds out some place for burial.

Robert Herrick

On Himself.

If that my fate has now fulfill'd my year,
And so soon stopt my longer living here;
What was't, ye gods, a dying man to save,
But while he met with his paternal grave!
Though while we living 'bout the world do roam,
We love to rest in peaceful urns at home,
Where we may snug, and close together lie
By the dead bones of our dear ancestry.

Robert Herrick

To The Yew And Cypress To Grace His Funeral.

Both you two have
Relation to the grave:
And where
The funeral-trump sounds, you are there,

I shall be made,
Ere long, a fleeting shade:
Pray, come
And do some honour to my tomb.

Do not deny
My last request; for I
Will be
Thankful to you, or friends, for me.

Robert Herrick

To His Tomb-Maker.

Go I must; when I am gone,
Write but this upon my stone:
Chaste I lived, without a wife,
That's the story of my life.
Strewings need none, every flower
Is in this word, bachelour.

Robert Herrick

To Electra.

Let not thy tombstone e'er be laid by me:
Nor let my hearse be wept upon by thee:
But let that instant when thou diest be known
The minute of mine expiration.
One knell be rung for both; and let one grave
To hold us two an endless honour have.

Robert Herrick