To Women, To Hide Their Teeth If They Be Rotten Or Rusty.

Close keep your lips, if that you mean
To be accounted inside clean:
For if you cleave them we shall see
There in your teeth much leprosy.

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

Gentleness.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

His Creed.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Cupid.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Fortune.

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.

No Lock Against Letchery.

Bar close as you can, and bolt fast too your door,
To keep out the letcher, and keep in the whore;
Yet quickly you'll see by the turn of a pin,
The whore to come out, or the letcher come in.

Robert Herrick

Upon Franck.

Franck would go scour her teeth; and setting to 't
Twice two fell out, all rotten at the root.

Robert Herrick

Upon Ralph.

Ralph pares his nails, his warts, his corns, and Ralph
In sev'rall tills and boxes, keeps 'em safe;
Instead of hartshorn, if he speaks the troth,
To make a lusty-jelly for his broth.

Robert Herrick

Upon Some Women.

Thou who wilt not love, do this,
Learn of me what woman is.
Something made of thread and thrum.
A mere botch of all and some.
Pieces, patches, ropes of hair;
Inlaid garbage everywhere.
Outside silk and outside lawn;
Scenes to cheat us neatly drawn.
False in legs, and false in thighs;
False in breast, teeth, hair, and eyes;
False in head, and false enough;
Only true in shreds and stuff.

Robert Herrick

Lips Tongueless.

For my part, I never care
For those lips that tongue-tied are:
Tell-tales I would have them be
Of my mistress and of me.
Let them prattle how that I
Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry:
Let them tell how she doth move
Fore or backward in her love:
Let them speak by gentle tones,
One and th' other's passions:
How we watch, and seldom sleep;
How by willows we do weep;
How by stealth we meet, and then
Kiss, and sigh, so part again.
This the lips we will permit
For to tell, not publish it.

Robert Herrick

The Candour Of Julia's Teeth.

White as Zenobia's teeth, the which the girls
Of Rome did wear for their most precious pearls.

Robert Herrick