To The King, Upon His Welcome To Hampton Court. Set And Sung.

Welcome, great Cæsar, welcome now you are
As dearest peace after destructive war:
Welcome as slumbers, or as beds of ease
After our long and peevish sicknesses.
O pomp of glory! Welcome now, and come
To repossess once more your long'd-for home.
A thousand altars smoke: a thousand thighs
Of beeves here ready stand for sacrifice.
Enter and prosper; while our eyes do wait
For an ascendent throughly auspicate:
Under which sign we may the former stone
Lay of our safety's new foundation:
That done, O Cæsar! live and be to us
Our fate, our fortune, and our genius;
To whose free knees we may our temples tie
As to a still protecting deity:
That should you stir, we and our altars too
May, great Augustus, go along with you.
Chor. Long live the King! and to accomplish this,
        We'll from our own add far more years to his.

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 The Most Accomplished Gentleman, M. Michael Oulsworth.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To His Book.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon A Virgin Kissing A Rose.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To The Most Virtuous Mistress Pot, Who Many Times Entertained Him.

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 The King.

If when these lyrics, Cæsar, you shall hear,
And that Apollo shall so touch your ear
As for to make this, that, or any one,
Number your own, by free adoption;
That verse, of all the verses here, shall be
The heir to this great realm of poetry.

Robert Herrick

To The King, Upon His Coming With His Army Into The West.

Welcome, most welcome to our vows and us,
Most great and universal genius!
The drooping West, which hitherto has stood
As one in long-lamented widowhood,
Looks like a bride now, or a bed of flowers
Newly refresh'd both by the sun and showers.
War, which before was horrid, now appears
Lovely in you, brave prince of cavaliers!
A deal of courage in each bosom springs
By your access, O you the best of kings!
Ride on with all white omens; so that where
Your standard's up, we fix a conquest there.

Robert Herrick

The Welcome To Sack.

So soft streams meet, so springs with gladder smiles
Meet after long divorcement by the isles;
When love, the child of likeness, urgeth on
Their crystal natures to a union:
So meet stolen kisses, when the moony nights
Call forth fierce lovers to their wish'd delights;
So kings and queens meet, when desire convinces
All thoughts but such as aim at getting princes,
As I meet thee. Soul of my life and fame!
Eternal lamp of love! whose radiant flame
Out-glares the heaven's Osiris,^[H] and thy gleams
Out-shine the splendour of his mid-day beams.
Welcome, O welcome, my illustrious spouse;
Welcome as are the ends unto my vows;
Aye! far more welcome than the happy soil
The sea-scourged merchant, after all his toil,
Salutes with tears of joy, when fires betra...

Robert Herrick

To Prince Charles Upon His Coming To Exeter.

What fate decreed, time now has made us see,
A renovation of the west by thee.
That preternatural fever, which did threat
Death to our country, now hath lost his heat,
And, calms succeeding, we perceive no more
Th' unequal pulse to beat, as heretofore.
Something there yet remains for thee to do;
Then reach those ends that thou wast destin'd to.
Go on with Sylla's fortune; let thy fate
Make thee like him, this, that way fortunate:
Apollo's image side with thee to bless
Thy war (discreetly made) with white success.
Meantime thy prophets watch by watch shall pray,
While young Charles fights, and fighting wins the day:
That done, our smooth-paced poems all shall be
Sung in the high doxology of thee.
Then maids shall strew thee, and thy curls from them
Receive...

Robert Herrick

His Return To London

From the dull confines of the drooping west
To see the day spring from the pregnant east,
Ravish'd in spirit, I come, nay more, I fly
To thee, blest place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallow'd foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown'd.
O fruitful genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, year by year.
O place! O people! Manners! fram'd to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is, though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call'd back, henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess'd by thee!
For, rather than I'll to the west return,
I'll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
We...

Robert Herrick

To His Sacred Majesty.

A Panegyric On His Coronation.

    In that wild deluge where the world was drown'd,
    When life and sin one common tomb had found,
    The first small prospect of a rising hill
    With various notes of joy the ark did fill:
    Yet when that flood in its own depths was drown'd,
    It left behind it false and slippery ground;
    And the more solemn pomp was still deferr'd,
    Till new-born nature in fresh looks appear'd.
    Thus, Royal Sir, to see you landed here,
    Was cause enough of triumph for a year:
    Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat,
    Till they at once might be secure and great:
    Till your kind beams, by their continued stay,
    Had warm'd the ground, and call'd the damps away,
    Such vapours, while your powerful influe...

John Dryden