Sed ne tempore non tuo disertam Pulses ebria januam, videto. ... ... ... Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas. Hæc hora est tua, cum furit Lyæus, Cum regnat rosa, cum madent capilli: Tunc me vel rigidi legant Catones. _When laurel spirts i' th' fire._ Burning bay leaves was a Christmas observance. Herrick sings:-- "Of crackling laurel, which foresounds A plenteous harvest to your grounds": where compare Tibull. II. v. 81-84. It was also used by maids as a love omen. _Thyrse ... sacred Orgies._ Herrick's glosses show that the passage he had in mind was Catullus, lxiv. 256-269:-- Harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos ... ... ... ... Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis, Orgia, quæ frustra cupiunt audire profani. 10. _No man at one time can be wise and love._ Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur. (Publius Syrus.) The quotation is found in both Burton and Montaigne. 12. _Who fears to ask_, etc. From Seneca, _Hippol._ 594-95. Qui timide rogat ... docet negare. 15. _Goddess Isis ... with her scent._ Cp. Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, 15. 17. _He acts the crime._ Seneca: Nil interest faveas sceleri an illud facias. 18. _Two things odious._ From Ecclus. xxv. 2. 31. _A Sister ... about I'll lead._ "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife?" 1 Cor. ix. 5. 35. _Mercy and Truth live with thee._ 2 Sam. xv. 20. 38. _To please those babies in your eyes._ The phrase "babies [_i.e._, dolls] in the eyes" is probably only a translation of its metaphor, involved in the use of the Latin _pupilla_ (a little girl), or "pupil," for the central spot of the eye. The metaphor doubtless arose from the small reflections of the inlooker, which appear in the eyes of the person gazed at; but we meet with it both intensified, as in the phrase "to look babies in the eyes" (= to peer amorously), and with its origin disregarded, as in Herrick, where the "babies" are the pupils, and have an existence independent of any inlooker. _Small griefs find tongue._ Seneca, _Hippol._ 608: Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. _Full casks._ So G. Herbert, _Jacula Prudentum_ (1640): Empty vessels sound most. 48. _Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave._ Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176: Velut unda supervenit unda. Κύματα κακῶν and κακῶν τρικυμία are common phrases in Greek tragedy. 49. _Cherry-pit._ Printed in the 1654 edition of _Witts Recreations_, where it appears as:-- "_Nicholas_ and _Nell_ did lately sit Playing for sport at cherry-pit; They both did throw, and, having thrown, He got the pit and she the stone". 51. _Ennobled numbers._ This poem is often quoted to prove that Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would rather prove the opposite. 52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice._ Jerem. xxii. 29: O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.