hearty outcome, illustrates the more permanent temper. Though some of the religious pieces

The Litany,' 'Jephthah's Daughter,' and 'A Thanksgiving,' for example-are masterpieces, most of the sacred poems are weak or formal. The special charm of Herrick lies in his secular poems; and his most secular poems are sheer paganism and epicureanism. Depth and passion are not his forte: Mr Gosse has to admit that Herrick approaches the mysteries of life and death with 'airy frivolity, easy-going callousness of soul.' His careless gaiety and sensuousness are at least genuine, are his natural element; his pictures of English life are unforced, fresh, and natural; his love-poems are tender, seem heartfelt and natural, and reveal a real undertone of melancholy; the conceits and similes are sometimes overstrained, and the humour forced; but in sweetness of melody and in harmony of sound with sense Herrick has no equal amongst his Caroline contemporaries. Only his epigrams are poor and gross and thoroughly unworthy of him.

The arrangement of the secular pieces is chaotic and incongruous, offering to us a medley of poems to friends, amatory poems, epigrams, fairy fancies, odes, and short poems on all manner of subjects. Some of them are so difficult to

harmonise with the devotional vein of his sacred pieces, even if we conceive the author a man of very varied moods, that it has been argued the sacred poems were in time of writing separated by a quarter of a century from his less decorous ones. But they were all published together.

Herrick's poems lay neglected for many years, were republished at the very end of the eighteenth century, but were hardly re-established in general esteem till well on in the nineteenth century; many of his shorter lyrics are now known to everybody, and some of them have been set to modern music. 'Cherry Ripe' (the idea and words of which are partly Campion's-see page 401) and 'Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may' delightfully combine playful fancy and natural feeling. Those 'To Blossoms,' 'To Daffodils,' and 'To Primroses' have even a touch of pathos that wins its way to the heart. Other gems are 'To Anthea,' 'The Mad Maid's Song,' 'The Night-piece to Julia' (Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee'), and 'To Electra' ("Tis evening, my sweet'). Shakespeare and Jonson had scattered such delicate fancies and snatches of lyrical melody among their plays and masques; and Herrick may have been directly influenced by the songs of Marlowe, Greene, and Fletcher. It has been debated whether he formed himself after any classical models. There is in his songs and anacreontics an unforced gaiety and natural tenderness that show he wrote chiefly from the spontaneous impulses of his own thoroughly artistic, pleasureloving temperament. Herrick's choice of words, when he is in his happiest vein, is perfect; his

versification is harmony itself. His verses bound and flow like some exquisite lively melody that echoes nature by wood and dell, and presents new beauties at every turn and winding. The strain is short and sometimes fantastic; but the notes linger in the mind, and take their place for ever in the memory.

Mr Swinburne has pointed out that the first great age of lyric poetry in England was the one great age of our dramatic poetry, but that the lyric school advanced as the dramatic school declined; the lyrical record that begins with the author of Euphues and Endymion grows fuller if not brighter through a whole series of constellations till it culminates in the crowning star of Herrick,' whose master was undoubtedly Marlowe. The last of his line, Herrick is the first of English songwriters; he lives simply by virtue of his songs; his more ambitious or pretentious lyrics are merely magnified and prolonged and elaborated songs. Elegy or litany, epicede or epithalamium, his work is always a song-writer's: nothing more but nothing less than the work of the greatest song-writer ever born of English race.' 'Ye have been fresh and green' is a sweeter and better song than 'Gather ye Rose-buds;' 'The Mad Maid's Song' can only be compared with William Blake's poems. Yet Herrick has his 'brutal blemishes,' and seems to have deliberately relieved the monotony of 'spices and flowers, condiments and kisses,' by admitting rank and intolerable odours. Though his 'sacred verse at its worst is as offensive as his secular verse at its worst,' 'neither Herbert nor Crashaw could have bettered'—

We see Him come and know Him ours,
Who with His sunshine and His showers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

To Meadows.

Ye have been fresh and green,

Ye have been fill'd with flowers; And ye the walks have been

Where maids have spent their houres.

You have beheld how they

With wicker arks did come, To kiss and beare away

The richer couslips home.

Y'ave heard them sweetly sing,
And seen them in a round;
Each virgin, like a spring,
With hony succles crown'd.

But now, we see none here,
Whose silv'rie feet did tread,
And with dishevell'd haire

Adorn'd this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent

Your stock, and needy grown, Y'are left here to lament Your poore estates alone.

Cherry Ripe.

Cherrie-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,

Full and faire ones-come and buy. If so be you ask me where

They doe grow?-I answer: There, Where my Julia's lips doe smile; There's the land, or cherry-ile ; Whose plantations fully shew

All the yeere where cherries grow.

The Rock of Rubies and the Quarrie of Pearls.

Some ask'd me where the rubies grew,

And nothing did I say,

But with my finger pointed to

The lips of Julia.

Some asked how pearls did

grow,

and where ;

Then spake I to my girle,

To part her lips, and shew'd them there
The quarrelets of pearl.

Upon Julia's Recovery.

Droop, droop no more, or hang the head,
Ye roses almost withered;

New strength and newer purple get

Each here declining violet;

O primroses! let this day be

A resurrection unto ye;

And to all flowers ally'd in blood,
Or sworn to that sweet sister-hood,
For health on Julia's cheek hath shed
Clarret and creame commingled;
And these her lips doe now appeare
As beames of coral, but more cleare.

The Bag of the Bee.

About the sweet bag of a bee,

Two Cupids fell at odds;
And whose the pretty prize shu'd be,
They vow'd to ask the gods.
Which Venus hearing, thither came,

And for their boldness stript them;
And taking thence from each his flame,
With rods of mirtle whipt them.
Which done, to still their wanton cries,

When quiet grown sh'ad seen them,
She kist and wip'd their dove-like eyes,
And gave the bag between them.

The Kiss-A Dialogue. 1. Among thy fancies, tell me this: What is the thing we call a kisse?

2. I shall resolve ye, what it is.

It is a creature born and bred

Between the lips, (all cherrie red,)

By love and warme desires fed;

Chor. And makes more soft the bridal bed.

2. It is an active flame, that flies First to the babies of the eyes,

pupils

And charms them there with lullabies;
Chor. And stils the bride too, when she cries.

2. Then to the chin, the cheek, the eare
It frisks and flyes: now here, now there;
'Tis now farre off, and then 'tis nere ;

1. Has it a speaking virtue?-2. Yes. 1. How speaks it, say?-2. Do you but this, Part your joyn'd lips, then speaks your kisse; Chor.-And this loves sweetest language is.

1. Has it a body?-2. Ay, and wings, With thousand rare encolourings; And as it flies, it gently sings,

Chor. Love honie yeelds, but never stings.

Corinna's going a-Maying.
Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morne
Upon her wings presents the god unshorne.
See how Aurora throwes her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the aire ;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herbe and tree.
Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an houre since, yet you are not drest,
Nay! not so much as out of bed?
When all the birds have mattens said,
And sung their thankfull hymnes: 'tis sin,
Nay, profanation to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seene
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and greene,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care
For jewels for your gowne or haire ;
Fear not, the leaves will strew
Gemms in abundance upon you;
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.
Come, and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himselfe, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dresse, be briefe in praying;
Few beads are best when once we goe a-Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, comming, mark
How each field turns a street, each street a parke
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this,
An arke, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white thorn neatly enterwove;
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields, and we not see 't?
Come, we 'll abroad, and let 's obay
The proclamation made for May:

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying,
But, my Corinna, come, let 's goe a-Maying.

There's not a budding boy or girle, this day,
But is got up, and gone to bring in May.
A deale of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have despatcht their cakes and creame
Before that we have left to dreame;
And some have wept, and woo'd, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:

Many a green-gown has been given;
Many a kisse, both odde and even ;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, love's firmament;

Many a jest told of the keyes betraying

This night, and locks pickt; yet w' are not a-Maying.

Come, let us goe, while we are in our prime,

And take the harmlesse follie of the time.

We shall grow old apace, and die
Before we know our liberty.

Our life is short, and our dayes run
As fast away as do's the sunne;
And as a vapour, or a drop of raine
Once lost, can ne'er be found againe;
So when or you or I are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drown'd with us in endlesse night. Then, while time serves, and we are but decaying, Come, my Corinna, come, let's goe a-Maying.

Twelfth-night, or King and Queen.

Now, now the mirth comes,
With the cake full of plums,

Where beane's the king of the sport here;
Beside we must know,

The pea also

Must revel as queene in the court here.

Begin then to chuse,

(This night as ye use)

Who shall for the present delight here;

Be a king by the lot,

And who shall not

Be Twelfe-day queene for the night here.

Which knowne, let us make
Joy-sops with the cake;

And let not a man then be seen here,

Who unurg'd will not drinke,

To the base from the brink,

A health to the king and the queene here.

Next crown the bowle full
With gentle lamb's-wooll ;

Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale, too;

And thus ye must doe

To make the wassaile a swinger.

Give them to the king

And queene wassailing;

And though with ale ye be wet here;

Yet part ye from hence,

As free from offence,

As when ye innocent met here.

The Bellman.

Along the dark and silent night,
With my lantern and my light,
And the tinkling of my bell,
Thus I walk, and thus I tell :
Death and dreadfulnesse call on
To the gen'rall session;

To whose dismall bare, we there
All accompts must come to cleere.
Scores of sins w'ave made here, many;
Wip't out few (God knowes) if any.
Rise, ye debters, then, and fall
To make paiment while I call.

Ponder this, when I am gone; By the clock 'tis almost one.

Upon a Child that Died. Here she lies, a pretty bud, Lately made of flesh and blood, Who as soone fell fast asleep, As her little eyes did peep. Give her strewings, but not stir The earth that lightly covers her.

Epitaph upon a Child. Virgins promis'd, when I dy'd, That they wo'd each primrose-tide Duely morne and ev'ning come, And with flowers dresse my tomb: Having promis'd, pay your debts, Maids, and here strew violets.

To finde God.

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find
A way to measure out the wind;
Distinguish all those floods that are
Mixt in the watrie theater;

And taste thou them as saltlesse there,
As in their channell first they were.
Tell me the people that do keep
Within the kingdomes of the deep;
Or fetch me back that cloud again,
Beshiver'd into seeds of raine.

Tell me the motes, dusts, sands, and speares
Of corn, when summer shakes his ears;
Shew me that world of starres, and whence
They noiselesse spill their influence:
This if thou canst, then shew me Him
That rides the glorious cherubim.

To Primroses, filled with Morning Dew.

Why doe ye weep, sweet babes? Can tears
Speak griefe in you,

Who were but borne

Just as the modest morne

Teem'd her refreshing dew?

Alas! you have not known that shower That marres a flower,

Nor felt th' unkind

Breath of a blasting wind;

Nor are ye worne with yeares,

Or warpt as we,

Who think it strange to see

Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young.
To speak by teares before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known
The reason why

Ye droop and weep;

Is it for want of sleep,

Or childish lullabie?

Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?

Or brought a kisse

From that sweet-heart to this?
No, no; this sorrow shewn
By your teares shed,

Would have this lecture read:

Which, fir'd with incense, I resigne

As wholly Thine:

But the acceptance-that must be,
My Christ, by Thee.

His Litanie, to the Holy Spirit.
In the houre of my distresse,
When temptations me oppresse,
And when I my sins confesse,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drown'd in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the artlesse doctor sees
No one hope, but of his fees,
And his skill runs on the lees;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When his potion and his pill,
Has, or none, or little skill,
Meet for nothing, but to kill;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the passing-bell doth tole,
And the furies in a shole
Come to fright a parting soule;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the tapers now burne blew,
And the comforters are few,
And that number more then true;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the priest his last hath praid,
And I nod to what is said,
'Cause my speech is now decaid;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When (God knowes) I'm tost about,
Either with despaire, or doubt;
Yet before the glasse be out,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
When the tempter me pursu'th
With the sins of all my youth,
And halfe damns me with untruth;
Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the flames and hellish cries
Fright mine eares, and fright mine eyes,
And all terrors me surprize;

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the Judgment is reveal'd,
And that open'd which was seal'd,
When to thee I have appeal'd;

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

Herrick's Poems have been edited by Nott (1810), T. Maitland (Lord Dundrennan, 1823), Dr Grosart (3 vols. 1876), Pollard (1891, with a preface by A. C. Swinburne), and Professor Saintsbury (1893). See also F. T. Palgrave's Chrysomela (a selection, 1877), Gosse's Seventeenth Century Studies (1883), and a German monograph by E. Hale (Halle, 1892).