The Maiden-Blush.

So look the mornings when the sun
Paints them with fresh vermilion:
So cherries blush, and Kathern pears,
And apricots in youthful years:
So corals look more lovely red,
And rubies lately polished:
So purest diaper doth shine,
Stain'd by the beams of claret wine:
As Julia looks when she doth dress
Her either cheek with bashfulness.

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

To Dews. A Song.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Himself.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Virtue Is Sensible Of Suffering.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

His Meditation Upon Death

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 Julia, In Her Dawn, Or Daybreak.

By the next kindling of the day,
My Julia, thou shalt see,
Ere Ave-Mary thou canst say
I'll come and visit thee.

Yet ere thou counsel'st with thy glass,
Appear thou to mine eyes
As smooth, and nak'd, as she that was
The prime of paradise.

If blush thou must, then blush thou through
A lawn, that thou mayst look
As purest pearls, or pebbles do
When peeping through a brook.

As lilies shrin'd in crystal, so
Do thou to me appear;
Or damask roses when they grow
To sweet acquaintance there.

Robert Herrick

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

Upon Her Blush.

When Julia blushes she does show
Cheeks like to roses when they blow.

Robert Herrick

Upon Roses

Under a lawn, than skies more clear,
Some ruffled Roses nestling were,
And snugging there, they seem'd to lie
As in a flowery nunnery;
They blush'd, and look'd more fresh than flowers
Quickened of late by pearly showers;
And all, because they were possest
But of the heat of Julia's breast,
Which, as a warm and moisten'd spring,
Gave them their ever-flourishing.

Robert Herrick

Morning.

O now the crimson east, its fire-streak burning,
Tempts me to wander 'neath the blushing morn,
Winding the zig-zag lane, turning and turning,
As winds the crooked fence's wilder'd thorn.
Where is the eye can gaze upon the blushes,
Unmov'd, with which yon cloudless heaven flushes?
I cannot pass the very bramble, weeping
'Neath dewy tear-drops that its spears surround,
Like harlot's mockery on the wan cheek creeping,
Gilding the poison that is meant to wound;--
I cannot pass the bent, ere gales have shaken
Its transient crowning off, each point adorning,--
But all the feelings of my soul awaken,
To own the witcheries of most lovely Morning.

John Clare

The Description Of A Woman.

Whose head, befringed with bescattered tresses,
Shows like Apollo's when the morn he dresses,^[B]
Or like Aurora when with pearl she sets
Her long, dishevell'd, rose-crown'd trammelets:
Her forehead smooth, full, polish'd, bright and high
Bears in itself a graceful majesty,
Under the which two crawling eyebrows twine
Like to the tendrils of a flatt'ring vine,
Under whose shade two starry sparkling eyes
Are beautifi'd with fair fring'd canopies.
Her comely nose, with uniformal grace,
Like purest white, stands in the middle place,
Parting the pair, as we may well suppose.
Each cheek resembling still a damask rose,
Which like a garden manifestly show
How roses, lilies, and carnations grow,
Which sweetly mixed both with white and red,
Like rose leav...

Robert Herrick