Upon Reape.

Reape's eyes so raw are that, it seems, the flies
Mistake the flesh, and fly-blow both his eyes;
So that an angler, for a day's expense,
May bait his hook with maggots taken thence.

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

His Lachrymæ; Or, Mirth Turned To Mourning.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

A Sonnet Of Perilla.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

His Own Epitaph.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

The Parcae; Or, Three Dainty Destinies: The Armilet

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 Loach.

Seal'd up with night-gum, Loach each morning lies,
Till his wife licking, so unglues his eyes.
No question then, but such a lick is sweet,
When a warm tongue does with such ambers meet.

Robert Herrick

An Angler

Now as an angler melancholy standing
Upon a green bank yielding room for landing,
A wriggling yellow worm thrust on his hook,
Now in the midst he throws, then in a nook:
Here pulls his line, there throws it in again,
Mendeth his cork and bait, but all in vain,
He long stands viewing of the curled stream;
At last a hungry pike, or well-grown bream
Snatch at the worm, and hasting fast away,
He knowing it a fish of stubborn sway,
Pulls up his rod, but soft, as having skill,
Wherewith the hook fast holds the fish's gill;
Then all his line he freely yieldeth him,
Whilst furiously all up and down doth swim
Th' insnared fish, here on the top doth scud,
There underneath the banks, then in the mud,
And with his frantic fits so scares the shoal,
That each one takes...

William Browne

Upon A Fly.

A golden fly one show'd to me,
Clos'd in a box of ivory,
Where both seem'd proud: the fly to have
His burial in an ivory grave;
The ivory took state to hold
A corpse as bright as burnish'd gold.
One fate had both, both equal grace;
The buried, and the burying-place.
Not Virgil's gnat, to whom the spring
All flowers sent to's burying;
Not Martial's bee, which in a bead
Of amber quick was buried;
Nor that fine worm that does inter
Herself i' th' silken sepulchre;
Nor my rare Phil,^[K] that lately was
With lilies tomb'd up in a glass;
More honour had than this same fly,
Dead, and closed up in ivory.

Robert Herrick

The Amber Bead.

I saw a fly within a bead
Of amber cleanly buried;
The urn was little, but the room
More rich than Cleopatra's tomb.

Robert Herrick

The Eye.

A wanton and lascivious eye
Betrays the heart's adultery.

Robert Herrick

The Present; Or, The Bag Of The Bees

Fly to my mistress, pretty pilfering bee,
And say thou bring'st this honey-bag from me;
When on her lip thou hast thy sweet dew placed,
Mark if her tongue but slyly steal a taste;
If so, we live; if not, with mournful hum,
Toll forth my death; next, to my burial come.

Robert Herrick