Upon A Maid.

Hence a blessed soul is fled,
Leaving here the body dead;
Which since here they can't combine,
For the saint we'll keep the shrine.

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

All Things Decay And Die

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To Dianeme. A Ceremony In Gloucester.

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.

Upon A Maid.

Gone she is a long, long way,
But she has decreed a day
Back to come, and make no stay:
So we keep, till her return,
Here, her ashes, or her urn.

Robert Herrick

Upon A Maid

Here she lies, in bed of spice,
Fair as Eve in paradise;
For her beauty, it was such,
Poets could not praise too much.
Virgins come, and in a ring
Her supremest requiem sing;
Then depart, but see ye tread
Lightly, lightly o'er the dead.

Robert Herrick

Upon A Maid That Died The Day She Was Married.

That morn which saw me made a bride,
The evening witness'd that I died.
Those holy lights, wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashful bride,
Serv'd but as tapers for to burn
And light my relics to their urn.
This epitaph, which here you see,
Supplied the epithalamy.

Robert Herrick

The Dirge Of Jephthah's Daughter: Sung By The Virgin-Martyr

O thou, the wonder of all days!
O paragon, and pearl of praise!
O Virgin-martyr, ever blest
Above the rest
Of all the maiden-train!We come,
And bring fresh strewings to thy tomb.

Thus, thus, and thus, we compass round
Thy harmless and unhaunted ground;
And as we sing thy dirge, we will
The daffodil,
And other flowers, lay upon
The altar of our love, thy stone.

Thou wonder of all maids, liest here,
Of daughters all, the dearest dear;
The eye of virgins; nay, the queen
Of this smooth green,
And all sweet meads, from whence we get
The primrose and the violet.

Too soon, too dear did Jephthah buy,
By thy sad loss, our liberty;
His was the bond and cov'nant, yet
Thou paid'st the debt;
Lamented Maid!he won the day:

Robert Herrick

Upon His Kinswoman, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick.

Sweet virgin, that I do not set
The pillars up of weeping jet
Or mournful marble, let thy shade
Not wrathful seem, or fright the maid
Who hither at her wonted hours
Shall come to strew thy earth with flowers.
No; know, bless'd maid, when there's not one
Remainder left of brass or stone,
Thy living epitaph shall be,
Though lost in them, yet found in me;
Dear, in thy bed of roses then,
Till this world shall dissolve as men,
Sleep while we hide thee from the light,
Drawing thy curtains round: Good-night.

Robert Herrick

To His Tomb-Maker.

Go I must; when I am gone,
Write but this upon my stone:
Chaste I lived, without a wife,
That's the story of my life.
Strewings need none, every flower
Is in this word, bachelour.

Robert Herrick