Robert Herrick

'Tis sin, Nay, profanation to keep in.

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see The dew bespangling herb and tree.

See how Aurora throws her fair Fresh-quilted colours through the air.

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes Which, starlike, sparkle in their skies; Nor be you proud that you can see All hearts your captives, yours yet free.

You say to me-wards your affection's strong; Pray love me little, so you love me long.

Which when I saw, I made access To kiss that tempting nakedness But she forbade me with a wand Of myrtle she had in her hand And, chiding me, said: Hence, remove, Herrick, thou art too coarse to love.

Her legs were such Diana shows When, tucked up, she a-hunting goes; With buskins shortened to descry The happy dawning of her thigh.

A virgin's face she had; her dress Was like a sprightly Spartaness.

Let others drink thee freely, and desire Thee and their lips espous'd, while I admire And love thee, but not taste thee. Let my muse Fail of thy former helps, and only use Her inadult'rate strength: what's done by me Hereafter shall smell …

'Tis not Apollo can, or those thrice three Castalian sisters, sing, if wanting thee. Horace, Anacreon, both had lost their fame, Had'st thou not fill'd them with thy fire and flame.

'Tis thou alone who, with thy mystic fan, Work'st more than wisdom, art, or nature can To rouse the sacred madness and awake The frost-bound blood and spirits, and to make Them frantic with thy raptures flashing through The soul like …

O thou, the drink of gods and angels! wine.

The kiss of virgins, first fruits of the bed, Soft speech, smooth touch, the lips, the maidenhead: These and a thousand sweets could never be So near or dear as thou wast once to me.

The warm soft side Of the resigning, yet resisting bride.

When a daffodil I see, Hanging down his head towards me, Guess I may what I must be: First, I shall decline my head; Secondly, I shall be dead; Lastly, safely buried.

Wealth cannot make a life, but love.

Hunger makes coarse meats delicates.

But thou liv'st fearless; and thy face ne'er shows Fortune when she comes or goes.

A winning wave, deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part.

A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness

Some ask'd how pearls did grow, and where; Then spoke I to my girl, To part her lips, and show'd them there The quarrelets of Pearl.

Some ask'd me where the rubies grew, And nothing I did say; But with my finger pointed to The lips of Julia.

Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score; Then to that twenty add a hundred more: A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on, To make that thousand up a million. Treble that million, and when that is done Let's kiss afresh, as when we first …