Home ⇒ 📌Robert Herrick ⇒ A MEDITATION FOR HIS MISTRESS
A MEDITATION FOR HIS MISTRESS
You are a Tulip seen to-day,
But, Dearest, of so short a stay,
That where you grew, scarce man can say.
You are a lovely July-flower;
Yet one rude wind, or ruffling shower,
Will force you hence, and in an hour.
You are a sparkling Rose i’th’ bud,
Yet lost, ere that chaste flesh and blood
Can show where you or grew or stood.
You are a full-spread fair-set Vine,
And can with tendrils love entwine;
Yet dried, ere you distil your wine.
You are like Balm, enclosed well
In amber, or some crystal shell;
Yet lost ere you transfuse your smell.
You are a dainty Violet;
Yet wither’d, ere you can be set
Within the virgins coronet.
You are the Queen all flowers among;
But die you must, fair maid, ere long,
As he, the maker of this song.
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- Angelus A deep bell that links the downs To the drowsy air; Every loop of sound that swoons, Finds a circle fair, Whereon it doth rest and fade; Every stroke that dins is laid Like a node, Spinning out the quivering, fine, Vibrant tendrils of a vine: (Bim – bim – bim.) How they wreathe and […]...
- Bacchus Bring me wine, but wine which never grew In the belly of the grape, Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching through Under the Andes to the Cape, Suffer no savor of the earth to scape. Let its grapes the morn salute From a nocturnal root, Which feels the acrid juice Of Styx and Erebus; […]...
- THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS, CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS, CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM DESUNT NONNULLA Come then, and like two doves with silvery wings, Let our souls fly to th’ shades, wherever springs Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil, Roses and cassia, crown the untill’d soil; Where no disease reigns, or infection comes To blast the […]...
- A Midnight Meditation HOW often have I said, “We may not grieve for the immortal dead.” And now, poor blenchèd heart, Thy ruddy hues all tremulous depart. Why be with fate at strife Because one passes on from death to life, Who may no more delay Rapt from our strange and pitiful dream away By one with ancient […]...
- To His Mistress Objecting To Him Neither Toying Nor Talking You say I love not, ’cause I do not play Still with your curls, and kiss the time away. You blame me, too, because I can’t devise Some sport to please those babies in your eyes;- By love’s religion, I must here confess it, The most I love, when I the least express it. Small […]...
- O'Donohue's Mistress Of all the fair months, that round the sun In light-link’d dance their circles run, Sweet May, shine thou for me; For still, when thy earliest beams arise, That youth, who beneath the blue lake lies, Sweet May, returns to me. Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves Its lingering smile on golden eves, […]...
- The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
- To His Mistress Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? O why Does that eclipsing hand of thine deny The sunshine of the Sun’s enlivening eye? Without thy light what light remains in me? Thou art my life; my way, my light’s in thee; I live, I move, and by thy beams I see. Thou art my life-if […]...
- The Lost Mistress All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that today; One day more bursts them open fully -You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? May […]...
- A Divine Mistress In Nature’s pieces still I see Some error that might mended be; Something my wish could still remove, Alter or add; but my fair love Was fram’d by hands far more divine, For she hath every beauteous line: Yet I had been far happier, Had Nature, that made me, made her. Then likeness might (that […]...
- Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
- The Vine I dreamed this mortal part of mine Was metamorphosed to a vine, Which, crawling one and every way, Enthralled my dainty Lucia. Methought, her long small legs and thighs I with my tendrils did surprise: Her belley, buttocks, and her waist By my soft nervelets were embraced About her head I writhing hung And with […]...
- Sea Shell Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing me a song, O Please! A song of ships, and sailor men, And parrots, and tropical trees, Of islands lost in the Spanish Main Which no man ever may find again, Of fishes and corals under the waves, And seahorses stabled in great green caves. Sea Shell, Sea Shell, Sing […]...
- Wishes To His (Supposed) Mistress Whoe’er she be, That not impossible she That shall command my heart and me; Where’er she lie, Locked up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny: Till that ripe birth Of studied fate stand forth, And teach her fair steps to our earth; Till that divine Idea take a shrine Of crystal flesh, through […]...
- The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart. The herring are not in […]...
- To My Inconstant Mistress When thou, poor excommunicate From all the joys of love, shalt see The full reward and glorious fate Which my strong faith shall purchase me, Then curse thine own inconstancy. A fairer hand than thine shall cure That heart which thy false oaths did wound; And to my soul a soul more pure Than thine […]...
- Welcome to the Table This is the feast of heavenly wine, And God invites to sup; The juices of the living Vine Were press’d to fill the cup. Oh! bless the Saviour, ye that eat, With royal dainties fed; Not heaven affords a costlier treat, For Jesus is the bread. The vile, the lost, He calls to them; Ye […]...
- The Mistress An age in her embraces passed Would seem a winter’s day; When life and light, with envious haste, Are torn and snatched away. But, oh! how slowly minutes roll. When absent from her eyes That feed my love, which is my soul, It languishes and dies. For then no more a soul but shade It […]...
- Elegy XVI: On His Mistress By our first strange and fatal interview, By all desires which thereof did ensue, By our long starving hopes, by that remorse Which my words’ masculine persuasive force Begot in thee, and by the memory Of hurts, which spies and rivals threatened me, I calmly beg: but by thy father’s wrath, By all pains, which […]...
- Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Shuffle-Shoon and Amber-Locks Sit together, building blocks; Shuffle-Shoon is old and grey, Amber-Locks a little child, But together at their play Age and Youth are reconciled, And with sympathetic glee Build their castles fair to see. “When I grow to be a man” (So the wee one’s prattle ran), “I shall build a castle so […]...
- Meditation On Saviors I When I considered it too closely, when I wore it like an element and smelt it like water, Life is become less lovely, the net nearer than the skin, a little troublesome, a little terrible. I pledged myself awhile ago not to seek refuge, neither in death nor in a walled garden, In lies […]...
- His Meditation Upon Death BE those few hours, which I have yet to spend, Blest with the meditation of my end; Though they be few in number, I’m content; If otherwise, I stand indifferent, Nor makes it matter, Nestor’s years to tell, If man lives long, and if he live not well. A multitude of days still heaped on […]...
- Psalm 80 The church’s prayer under affliction; or, The vineyard of God wasted. Great Shepherd of thine Israel, Who didst between the cherubs dwell, And lead the tribes, thy chosen sheep, Safe through the desert and the deep; Thy church is in the desert now, Shine from on high and guide us through; Turn us to thee, […]...
- Master And Mistress As if I were composed of dust and air, The shape confronting me upon the stair (Athlete of shadow, lighted by a stain On its disjunctive breast I saw it plain ) Moved through my middle flesh. I turned around, Shaken and it was marching without sound Beyond the door; and when my hand was […]...
- I rose because He sank I rose because He sank I thought it would be opposite But when his power dropped My Soul grew straight. I cheered my fainting Prince I sang firm even Chants I helped his Film with Hymn And when the Dews drew off That held his Forehead stiff I met him Balm to Balm I told […]...
- Delight becomes pictorial Delight becomes pictorial When viewed through Pain More fair because impossible Than any gain The Mountain at a given distance In Amber lies Approached the Amber flits a little And That’s the Skies...
- Ode to Meditation SWEET CHILD OF REASON! maid serene; With folded arms, and pensive mien, Who wand’ring near yon thorny wild, So oft, my length’ning hours beguil’d; Thou, who within thy peaceful call, Canst laugh at LIFE’S tumultuous care, While calm repose delights to dwell On beds of fragrant roses there; Where meek-ey’d PATIENCE waits to greet The […]...
- Meditation under Stars What links are ours with orbs that are So resolutely far: The solitary asks, and they Give radiance as from a shield: Still at the death of day, The seen, the unrevealed. Implacable they shine To us who would of Life obtain An answer for the life we strain To nourish with one sign. Nor […]...
- TO SIR CLIPSBY CREW Since to the country first I came, I have lost my former flame; And, methinks, I not inherit, As I did, my ravish’d spirit. If I write a verse or two, ‘Tis with very much ado; In regard I want that wine Which should conjure up a line. Yet, though now of Muse bereft, I […]...
- An Ode to Master Endymion Porter, Upon His Brother's Death Not all thy flushing suns are set, Herrick, as yet ; Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere Frown and look sullen ev’rywhere. Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest As dead within the west ; Yet, the next morn, regild the fragrant east. Alas! for me, that I have lost E’en all almost ; […]...
- Sonnets 06: No Rose That In A Garden Ever Grew No rose that in a garden ever grew, In Homer’s or in Omar’s or in mine, Though buried under centuries of fine Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew Forever, and forever lost from view, But must again in fragrance rich as wine The grey aisles of the air incarnadine When the old […]...
- News Of The Gold World Of May News of the Gold World of May in Holland Michigan: “Wooden shoes will clatter again on freshly scrubbed streets “ The tulip will arise and reign again from awnings and windows of all colors and forms its vine, verve and valentine curves upon the city streets, the public grounds and private lawns (wherever it is […]...
- UPON HIS SISTER-IN-LAW, MISTRESS ELIZABETHHERRICK First, for effusions due unto the dead, My solemn vows have here accomplished; Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell, Wherein thou liv’st for ever. Dear, farewell!...
- My Mistress Commanding Me to Return Her Letters SO grieves th’ adventurous merchant, when he throws All the long toil’d-for treasure his ship stows Into the angry main, to save from wrack Himself and men, as I grieve to give back These letters : yet so powerful is your sway As if you bid me die, I must obey. Go then, blest papers, […]...
- A DIALOGUE BETWIXT HIMSELF AND MISTRESS ELIZAWHEELER, UNDER THE NAME OF AMARILLIS My dearest Love, since thou wilt go, And leave me here behind thee; For love or pity, let me know The place where I may find thee. AMARIL. In country meadows, pearl’d with dew, And set about with lilies; There, filling maunds with cowslips, you May find your Amarillis. HER. What have the meads to […]...
- Meditation on a Bone A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A. D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow. Words scored upon a bone, Scratched in despair or rage Nine hundred years have gone; […]...
- The Vine THE wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long: Sits long and arises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great, rich Vine....
- My Cross I wrote a poem to the moon But no one noticed it; Although I hoped that late or soon Someone would praise a bit Its purity and grace forlone, Its beauty tulip-cool… But as my poem died still-born, I felt a fool. I wrote a verse of vulgar trend Spiced with an oath or two; […]...
- Mistress Gurton's Cat Old MISTRESS GURTON had a Cat, A Tabby, loveliest of the race, Sleek as a doe, and tame, and fat With velvet paws, and whisker’d face; The Doves of VENUS not so fair, Nor JUNO’S Peacocks half so grand As MISTRESS GURTON’S Tabby rare, The proudest of the purring band; So dignified in all her […]...
- Psalm 133 Brotherly love. Lo! what an entertaining sight Are brethren that agree! Brethren, whose cheerful hearts unite In bands of piety! When streams of love from Christ the spring Descend to every soul, And heav’nly peace, with balmy wing, Shades and bedews the whole; ‘Tis like the oil, divinely sweet, On Aaron’s reverend head The trickling […]...