Upon Tooly.

The eggs of pheasants wry-nosed Tooly sells,
But ne'er so much as licks the speckled shells:
Only, if one prove addled, that he eats
With superstition, as the cream of meats.
The cock and hen he feeds; but not a bone
He ever picked, as yet, of anyone.

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 Bracelet To Julia

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To Electra.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

His Parting From Mrs. Dorothy Kennedy.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Shame No Statist.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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The Precipitate Cock And The Unappreciated Pearl

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They hastened up by legions,
With quaint, expressive gurgles in
Their oesophageal regions.

Just then a kind of glimmering
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Said he, "I' faith, if this be food,
I saw the prize ere they did."

It was a large and costly pearl,
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Oberon's Feast

Hapcot! To thee the Fairy State
I with discretion, dedicate.
Because thou prizest things that are
Curious, and un-familiar.
Take first the feast; these dishes gone,
We'll see the Fairy Court anon.
A little mushroom table spread,
After short prayers, they set on bread;
A moon-parched grain of purest wheat,
With some small glit'ring grit, to eat
His choice bits with; then in a trice
They make a feast less great than nice.
But all this while his eye is serv'd,
We must not think his ear was sterv'd:
But that there was in place to stir
His spleen, the chirring grasshopper,
The merry cricket, the puling fly,
The piping gnat for minstralcy.
And now, we must imagine first,
The elves present to quench his thirst
A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,

Robert Herrick

Upon Gander. Epig.

Since Gander did his pretty youngling wed,
Gander, they say, doth each night piss a-bed:
What is the cause? Why, Gander will reply,
No goose lays good eggs that is trodden dry.

Robert Herrick

His Grange, Or Private Wealth

Though clock,
To tell how night draws hence, I've none,
A cock
I have to sing how day draws on:
I have
A maid, my Prue, by good luck sent,
To save
That little, Fates me gave or lent.
A hen
I keep, which, creeking day by day,
Tells when
She goes her long white egg to lay:
A goose
I have, which, with a jealous ear,
Lets loose
Her tongue, to tell what danger's near.
A lamb
I keep, tame, with my morsels fed,
Whose dam
An orphan left him, lately dead:
A cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
Grown fat
With eating many a miching mouse:
To these
A Trasy I do keep, whereby
I please
The more my rural privacy:
Which are
But toys, to give my heart some ease:
Where care
None is, slight things do li...

Robert Herrick

Upon Spokes.

Spokes, when he sees a roasted pig, he swears
Nothing he loves on't but the chaps and ears:
But carve to him the fat flanks, and he shall
Rid these, and those, and part by part eat all.

Robert Herrick

Hen's Nest

Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hens nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull
In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,
And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,
Shes laid so long so many might have been.
But naught is found and all is given oer
Till the young brood come chirping to the door.

John Clare