The Mean.

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

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

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The Mean.

Imparity doth ever discord bring;
The mean the music makes in everything.

Robert Herrick

His Misery In A Mistress.

Water, water I espy;
Come and cool ye, all who fry
In your loves; but none as I.

Though a thousand showers be
Still a-falling, yet I see
Not one drop to light on me.

Happy you who can have seas
For to quench ye, or some ease
From your kinder mistresses.

I have one, and she alone,
Of a thousand thousand known,
Dead to all compassion.

Such an one as will repeat
Both the cause and make the heat
More by provocation great.

Gentle friends, though I despair
Of my cure, do you beware
Of those girls which cruel are.

Robert Herrick

Evil.

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

Robert Herrick

Clemency In Kings.

Kings must not only cherish up the good,
But must be niggards of the meanest blood.

Robert Herrick

Another To The Maids

Wash your hands, or else the fire
Will not tend to your desire;
Unwashed hands, ye maidens, know,
Dead the fire, though ye blow.

Robert Herrick

Mean In Our Mean

Though frankincense the deities require,
We must not give all to the hallow'd fire.
Such be our gifts, and such be our expense,
As for ourselves to leave some frankince

Robert Herrick