Upon A Cheap Laundress. Epig.

Feacie, some say, doth wash her clothes i' th' lie
That sharply trickles from her either eye.
The laundresses, they envy her good-luck,
Who can with so small charges drive the buck.
What needs she fire and ashes to consume,
Who can scour linens with her own salt rheum?

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

Leprosy In Clothes.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Mrs Eliz Wheeler, Under The Name Of The Lost Shepherdess

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Never Too Late To Die.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Bad Wages For Good Service.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Upon Sudds, A Laundress.

Sudds launders bands in piss, and starches them
Both with her husband's and her own tough fleam.

Robert Herrick

An Address To The Steam Washing Company.

"Archer. How many are there, Scrub?"
"Scrub. Five-and-forty, Sir." Beaux' Stratagem.

"For shame - let the linen alone!" M. W. of Windsor.


Mr. Scrub - Mr. Slop - or whoever you be!
The Cock of Steam Laundries, - the head Patentee
Of Associate Cleansers, - Chief founder and prime
Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime -
Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety -
That make washing public - and wash in society -
O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego,
For a moment, the music that bubbles below, -
From your new Surrey Geisers all foaming and hot, -
That soft "simmer's sang" so endear'd to the Scot -
If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger -
If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stra...

Thomas Hood

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

Upon Doll. Epig.

Doll, she so soon began the wanton trade,
She ne'er remembers that she was a maid.

Robert Herrick

To The Little Spinners.

Ye pretty housewives, would ye know
The work that I would put ye to?
This, this it should be: for to spin
A lawn for me, so fine and thin
As it might serve me for my skin.
For cruel Love has me so whipp'd
That of my skin I all am stripp'd:
And shall despair that any art
Can ease the rawness or the smart,
Unless you skin again each part.
Which mercy if you will but do,
I call all maids to witness to
What here I promise: that no broom
Shall now or ever after come
To wrong a spinner or her loom.

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