The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2Herrick, Robert
General
The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2
Herrick, Robert
Poetry
Do not deny
My last request; for I
Will be
Thankful to you, or friends, for me.
281. I CALL AND I CALL.
I call, I call: who do ye call?
The maids to catch this cowslip ball:
But since these cowslips fading be,
Troth, leave the flowers, and, maids, take me.
Yet, if that neither you will do,
Speak but the word and I'll take you.
282. ON A PERFUMED LADY.
You say you're sweet; how should we know
Whether that you be sweet or no?
From powders and perfumes keep free,
Then we shall smell how sweet you be.
283. A NUPTIAL SONG OR EPITHALAMY ON SIR CLIPSEBY CREW AND HIS LADY.
What's that we see from far? the spring of day
Bloom'd from the east, or fair enjewell'd May
Blown out of April, or some new
Star filled with glory to our view,
Reaching at heaven,
To add a nobler planet to the seven?
Say, or do we not descry
Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany
To move, or rather the
Emergent Venus from the sea?
'Tis she! 'tis she! or else some more divine
Enlightened substance; mark how from the shrine
Of holy saints she paces on,
Treading upon vermilion
And amber: spic-
ing the chaft air with fumes of Paradise.
Then come on, come on and yield
A savour like unto a blessed field
When the bedabbled morn
Washes the golden ears of corn.
See where she comes; and smell how all the street
Breathes vineyards and pomegranates: O how sweet!
As a fir'd altar is each stone,
Perspiring pounded cinnamon.
The phœnix' nest,
Built up of odours, burneth in her breast.
Who, therein, would not consume
His soul to ash-heaps in that rich perfume?
Bestroking fate the while
He burns to embers on the pile.
Hymen, O Hymen! tread the sacred ground;
Show thy white feet and head with marjoram crown'd:
Mount up thy flames and let thy torch
Display the bridegroom in the porch,
In his desires
More towering, more disparkling than thy fires:
Show her how his eyes do turn
And roll about, and in their motions burn
Their balls to cinders: haste
Or else to ashes he will waste.
Glide by the banks of virgins, then, and pass
The showers of roses, lucky four-leav'd grass:
The while the cloud of younglings sing
And drown ye with a flowery spring;
While some repeat
Your praise and bless you, sprinkling you with wheat;
While that others do divine,
_Bless'd is the bride on whom the sun doth shine_;
And thousands gladly wish
You multiply as doth a fish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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