Upon Time

Time was upon
The wing, to fly away;
And I call'd on
Him but awhile to stay;
But he'd be gone,
For aught that I could say.

He held out then
A writing, as he went,
And ask'd me, when
False man would be content
To pay again
What God and Nature lent.

An hour-glass,
In which were sands but few,
As he did pass,
He shew'd, and told me too
Mine end near was;
And so away he flew.

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

The Parasceve, Or Preparation.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To Fortune.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Clothes For Continuance.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

A Conjuration To Electra

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick

Life of my life, take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon dispatch'd is by the night as day.
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kiss'd, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell
When once true lovers take their last farewell.
What? shall we two our endless leaves take here
Without a sad look, or a solemn tear?
He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,
Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved.
Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part,
Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart
Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none
To warm my breast, when thou, my pulse, art gone,
No, here I'll last, and walk, a harmles...

Robert Herrick

Mr. Robert Herrick: His Farewell Unto Poetry.

I have beheld two lovers in a night
Hatched o'er with moonshine from their stolen delight
(When this to that, and that to this, had given
A kiss to such a jewel of the heaven,
Or while that each from other's breath did drink
Health to the rose, the violet, or pink),
Call'd on the sudden by the jealous mother,
Some stricter mistress or suspicious other,
Urging divorcement (worse than death to these)
By the soon jingling of some sleepy keys,
Part with a hasty kiss; and in that show
How stay they would, yet forced they are to go.
Even such are we, and in our parting do
No otherwise than as those former two
Natures like ours, we who have spent our time
Both from the morning to the evening chime.
Nay, till the bellman of the night had tolled
Past noon of night...

Robert Herrick

Upon His Departure Hence.

Thus I
Pass by,
And die:
As one
Unknown
And gone:
I'm made
A shade,
And laid
I' th' grave:
There have
My cave,
Where tell
I dwell.
Farewell.

Robert Herrick

His Sailing From Julia

When that day comes, whose evening says I'm gone
Unto that watery desolation;
Devoutly to thy Closet-gods then pray,
That my wing'd ship may meet no Remora.
Those deities which circum-walk the seas,
And look upon our dreadful passages,
Will from all dangers re-deliver me,
For one drink-offering poured out by thee,
Mercy and Truth live with thee!and forbear,
In my short absence, to unsluice a tear;
But yet for love's-sake, let thy lips do this,
Give my dead picture one engendering kiss;
Work that to life, and let me ever dwell
In thy remembrance, Julia.So farewell.

Robert Herrick

To Daffodils

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Robert Herrick

Love And Time.

'Tis said--but whether true or not
    Let bards declare who've seen 'em--
That Love and Time have only got
    One pair of wings between 'em.
In Courtship's first delicious hour,
    The boy full oft can spare 'em;
So, loitering in his lady's bower,
    He lets the gray-beard wear 'em.
        Then is Time's hour of play;
        Oh, how be flies, flies away!

But short the moments, short as bright,
    When he the wings can borrow;
If Time to-day has had his flight,
    Love takes his turn to-morrow.
Ah! Time and Love, your change is then
    The saddest and most trying,
When one begins to limp again,
    And t'other takes to flying.
        Then is Love's hour to stray;
        Oh, how he flies, flies away!

But there's a nymph...

Thomas Moore