Upon Julia's Breasts.

Display thy breasts, my Julia - there let me
Behold that circummortal purity,
Between whose glories there my lips I'll lay,
Ravish'd in that fair via lactea.

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 Lord Hopton, On His Fight In Cornwall.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

The Lily In A Crystal.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Policy In Princes.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To The Passenger.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Upon The Nipples Of Julia's Breast

Have ye beheld (with much delight)
A red rose peeping through a white?
Or else a cherry (double graced)
Within a lily? Centre placed?
Or ever marked the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half drowned in cream?
Or seen rich rubies blushing through
A pure smooth pearl, and orient too?
So like to this, nay all the rest,
Is each neat niplet of her breast.

Robert Herrick

On Julia's Lips.

Sweet are my Julia's lips and clean,
As if o'erwashed in Hippocrene.

Robert Herrick

Upon His Julia.

Will ye hear what I can say
Briefly of my Julia?
Black and rolling is her eye,
Double-chinn'd and forehead high;
Lips she has all ruby red,
Cheeks like cream enclareted;
And a nose that is the grace
And proscenium of her face.
So that we may guess by these
The other parts will richly please.

Robert Herrick

Upon Julia's Clothes

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes!

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free,
Oh how that glittering taketh me!

Robert Herrick

To Julia, In Her Dawn, Or Daybreak.

By the next kindling of the day,
My Julia, thou shalt see,
Ere Ave-Mary thou canst say
I'll come and visit thee.

Yet ere thou counsel'st with thy glass,
Appear thou to mine eyes
As smooth, and nak'd, as she that was
The prime of paradise.

If blush thou must, then blush thou through
A lawn, that thou mayst look
As purest pearls, or pebbles do
When peeping through a brook.

As lilies shrin'd in crystal, so
Do thou to me appear;
Or damask roses when they grow
To sweet acquaintance there.

Robert Herrick

Upon Julia's Unlacing Herself.

Tell if thou canst, and truly, whence doth come
This camphor, storax, spikenard, galbanum;
These musks, these ambers, and those other smells,
Sweet as the vestry of the oracles.
I'll tell thee: while my Julia did unlace
Her silken bodice but a breathing space,
The passive air such odour then assum'd,
As when to Jove great Juno goes perfum'd,
Whose pure immortal body doth transmit
A scent that fills both heaven and earth with it.

Robert Herrick