Then soft Catullus, sharp-fang'd Martial,
And tow'ring Lucan, Horace, Juvenal,

And snaky Persius; these, and those whom rage,
Dropp'd for the jars of heav'n, fill'd t'engage
All times unto their frenzies; thou shalt there
Behold them in a spacious theatre:

Among which glories, crown'd with sacred bays,
And flatt'ring ivy, two recite their plays,
Beaumont and Fletcher, swans, to whom all ears
Listen, while they, like syrens in their spheres,
Sing their Evadne; and still more for thee
There yet remains to know, than thou canst see
By glimm❜ring of a fancy: do but come,
And there I'll shew thee that capacious room,
In which thy father Jonson now is plac'd
As in a globe of radiant fire, and grac’d
To be in that orb crown'd, that doth include
Those prophets of the former magnitude,
And he one chief.—But hark; I hear the cock,
The belman of the night, proclaim the clock
Of late struck one; and, now I see the prime
Of day break from the pregnant east, 'tis time
I vanish: more I had to say,

But night determines here. Away!

CLXXVII.

LOVE LIGHTLY PLEASED.

LET fair or foul my mistress be,
Or low or tall, she pleaseth me;
Or let her walk or stand or sit,
The posture her's, I'm pleas'd with it;
Or let her tongue be still or stir,
Graceful is ev'ry thing from her;

Or let her grant or else deny,
My love will fit each history.

CLXXVIII.

THE PRIMROSE.

Ask me why I send you here
This sweet infanta of the year?
Ask me why I send to you

This primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew?
I will whisper to your ears,

The sweets of love are mix'd with tears.

Ask me why this flow'r does show

So yellow green, and sickly too?
Ask me why the stalk is weak

And bending, yet it doth not break?
I will answer, these discover

What fainting hopes are in a lover.

POEM CLXXVIII.] This poem is also found in Ca rew's collection, and is in the same predicament with poem 89; the observations on which will in every respect apply to it. As Carew's copy differs from Herrick's in almost every line, I will transcribe it entire, that the reader may judge for himself which has the fairest claim to origi nalness.

.

Ask me why I send you here,

This firstling of the infant year;

Ask me why I send to you

This primrose all bepearl'd with dew;

I strait will whisper in your ears,

The sweets of love are wash'd with tears.

Ask me why this flow'r doth shew

So yellow, green, and sickly too;

Ask me why the stalk is weak,
And bending, yet it doth not break;
I must tell you, these discover
What doubts and fears are in a lover.

CLXXIX.

THE TITHE.

TO THE BRIDE.

IF nine times you your bridegroom kiss, The tenth you know the parson's is; Pay then your tithe, and, doing thus, Prove in your bridebed numerous ! If children you have ten, Sir John Wont for his tenth part ask you one.

CLXXX.

NO LUCK IN LOVE.

I do love I know not what,
Sometimes this, and sometimes that;
All conditions I aim at.

But, as luckless, I have yet
Many shrewd disasters met,
To gain her whom I would get.

Therefore now I'll love no more,
As I've doted heretofore;

He, who must be, shall be poor.

CLXXXI.

THE HEADACH.

My head doth ache;
O Sappho, take

Thy fillet,

And bind the pain;
Or bring some bane

To kill it!

But less that part,
Than my poor heart,
Now is sick;

One kiss from thee

Will counsel be,

And physick.

CLXXXII.

HIS PRAYER TO BEN JONSON.

WHEN I a verse shall make;
Know I have pray'd thee,

For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee

Offer my lyrick.

Candles I'll give to thee,

And a new altar;

And thou, saint Ben, shalt be

Writ in my psalter !

CLXXXIII.

THE BAD SEASON MAKES THE POET SAD.

DULL to myself, and almost dead to these

My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all musick now, since every thing
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing;

POEM CLXXXIII.] This was probably written during his ejectment from his vicarage, and after the death of Charles the first.

Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dang❜rous faintings by her desp’rate cure :
But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here;

I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In †Syrian dews, and head with roses crown'd ;
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
Knock at a star with my exalted head.f

CLXXXIV.

PURPOSES.

No wrath of men, or rage of seas
Can shake a just man's purposes;
No threats of tyrants, or the grim
Visage of them can alter him;
But what he doth at first intend,
That he holds firmly to the end.

CLXXXV.

TO THE MAIDS,

TO WALK ABROAD.

COME sit we under yonder tree,

Where merry as the maids we'll be;
And, as on primroses we sit,

We'll venture, if we can, at wit:

* In this, and the two following lines, Charles the first, and his consort, are no doubt alluded to.

The text has Tyrian. See a note to poem 115. page 103. Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

HORAT. Ode 1. Lib. 1.

POEM CLXXXIV.] These lines must have been sug

gested by the following:

Justum et tenacem propositi virum, &c.

HORAT. Ode 3. Lib. 3.