Upon The Same. (To The Detractor.)

I ask'd thee oft what poets thou hast read,
And lik'st the best. Still thou reply'st: The dead.
I shall, ere long, with green turfs cover'd be;
Then sure thou'lt like or thou wilt envy me.

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

Society.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Laugh And Lie Down.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Upon Gubbs. Epig.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Sinners.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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Upon The Detracter

I ask'd thee oft what poets thou hast read,
And lik'st the best?Still thou repli'st, The dead.
I shall, ere long, with green turfs cover'd be;
Then sure thou'lt like, or thou wilt envy, me.

Robert Herrick

On Himself (2)

Live by thy Muse thou shalt, when others die,
Leaving no fame to long posterity;
When monarchies trans-shifted are, and gone,
Here shall endure thy vast dominion.

Robert Herrick

To His Brother, Nicholas Herrick.

What others have with cheapness seen and ease
In varnish'd maps, by th' help of compasses,
Or read in volumes and those books with all
Their large narrations incanonical,
Thou hast beheld those seas and countries far,
And tell'st to us what once they were, and are.
So that with bold truth thou can'st now relate
This kingdom's fortune, and that empire's fate:
Can'st talk to us of Sharon, where a spring
Of roses have an endless flourishing;
Of Sion, Sinai, Nebo, and with them
Make known to us the new Jerusalem;
The Mount of Olives, Calvary, and where
Is, and hast seen, thy Saviour's sepulchre.
So that the man that will but lay his ears
As inapostate to the thing he hears,
Shall by his hearing quickly come to see
The truth of travels less in books than thee....

Robert Herrick

To His Book. Another.

Who with thy leaves shall wipe, at need,
The place where swelling piles do breed;
May every ill that bites or smarts
Perplex him in his hinder parts.

Robert Herrick

On Himself.

Some parts may perish, die thou canst not all:
The most of thee shall 'scape the funeral.

Robert Herrick

Upon Ben Jonson.

Here lies Jonson with the rest
Of the poets: but the best.
Reader, would'st thou more have known?
Ask his story, not this stone.
That will speak what this can't tell
Of his glory. So farewell.

Robert Herrick