Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
Robert Herrickwas a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is best known for Hesperides, a book of poems. This includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", with the first line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 August 1591
laughter joy tears
Our present tears here, not our present laughter Are but the handsells of our joys hereafter.
play theatre lasts
The first act's doubtful, but we say, it is the last commends the play.
couple valentine bird
Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say, Birds chuse their mates and couple too this day: But by their flight I never can devine When I shall couple with my valentine.
running sweet doctors
When the artless 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!
green springtime celebration
Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen To come forth, like the springtime, fresh and green
rising sun haste
Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon: As yet the early-rising sun Has not attained his noon.
spring eating pleasure
Feed him ye must, whose food fills you. And that this pleasure is like raine, Not sent ye for to drowne your paine, But for to make it spring againe.
love art eye
Thou art my life, my love, my heart, The very eyes of me: And hast command of every part To live and die for thee.
sweet prayer temptation
When the tempter me pursueth With the sins of all my youth, And half damns me with untruth, Sweet Spirit, comfort me!
beauty eye brave
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see That brave vibration each way free, O how that glittering taketh me!
morning poetry sober
In sober mornings do not thou rehearse The holy incantation of a verse
wine smell poetry
Let my muse Fail of thy former helps, and only use Her inadulterate strength. What's done by me Hereafter shall smell of the lamp, not thee.
buying spirit god-love
Buying, possessing, accumulating--this is not worldliness. But doing this in the love of it, with no love of God paramount--doing it so that thoughts of eternity and God are an intrusion--doing it so that one's spirit is secularized in the process; this is worldliness.
pity snares
None pities him that is in the snare, who warned before, would not beware.