To Springs And Fountains.

I heard ye could cool heat, and came
With hope you would allay the same;
Thrice I have wash'd but feel no cold,
Nor find that true which was foretold.
Methinks, like mine, your pulses beat
And labour with unequal heat;
Cure, cure yourselves, for I descry
Ye boil with love as well as I.

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 God.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Gryll.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Of Love: A Sonnet

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To His Book.

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.

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

To Dews. A Song.

I burn, I burn; and beg of you
To quench or cool me with your dew.
I fry in fire, and so consume,
Although the pile be all perfume.
Alas! the heat and death's the same,
Whether by choice or common flame,
To be in oil of roses drowned,
Or water; where's the comfort found?
Both bring one death; and I die here
Unless you cool me with a tear:
Alas! I call; but ah! I see
Ye cool and comfort all but me.

Robert Herrick

To His Mistresses.

Help me! help me! now I call
To my pretty witchcrafts all;
Old I am, and cannot do
That I was accustomed to.
Bring your magics, spells, and charms,
To enflesh my thighs and arms.
Is there no way to beget
In my limbs their former heat?
Æson had, as poets feign,
Baths that made him young again:
Find that medicine, if you can,
For your dry decrepit man
Who would fain his strength renew,
Were it but to pleasure you.

Robert Herrick

To Music, To Becalm His Fever

Charm me asleep, and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers;
That being ravish'd, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.
Ease my sick head,
And make my bed,
Thou Power that canst sever
From me this ill;
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire,
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep,
And give me such reposes,
That I, poor I,
May think, thereby,
I live and die
'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers,
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains
With thy soft strains;
That having ease me given,
With full de...

Robert Herrick

How Springs Came First

These springs were maidens once that loved,
But lost to that they most approved:
My story tells, by Love they were
Turn'd to these springs which we see here:
The pretty whimpering that they make,
When of the banks their leave they take,
Tells ye but this, they are the same,
In nothing changed but in their name.

Robert Herrick

To The Water-nymphs Drinking At The Fountain

Reach with your whiter hands to me
Some crystal of the spring;
And I about the cup shall see
Fresh lilies flourishing.

Or else, sweet nymphs, do you but this
To th' glass your lips incline;
And I shall see by that one kiss
The water turn'd to wine.

Robert Herrick