TO DAFFODILS

ROBERT HERRICK

AIR daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early rising sun

Has not attained his noon:
Stay, stay,

Until the hastening day
Has run

But to the even song;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring:
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or anything:

We die,

As your hours do; and dry

Away

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

THE BAG OF THE BEE

A

ROBERT HERRICK

BOUT the sweet bag of a bee
Two Cupids fell at odds;

And whose the pretty prize should be
They vowed to ask the gods.

Which Venus hearing, thither came, And for their boldness stript them, And taking thence from each his flame, With rods of myrtle whipt them.

Which done, to still their wanton cries, When quiet grown she'd seen them, She kiss'd and wiped their dove-like eyes, And gave the bag between them.

THE SUCCESSION OF THE FOUR SWEET

FIR

MONTHS

ROBERT HERRICK

IRST, April, she with mellow show'rs
Opens the way for early flowers;

Then after her comes smiling May,
In a more rich and sweet array ;
Next enters June, and brings us more

Gems, than those two, that went before:
Then, lastly, July comes, and she

More wealth brings in, than all those three.

A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

TELL thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen;
O, things without compare!

Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.

At Charing-cross, hard by the way,
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;

And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,

Forty at least, in pairs.

Amongst the rest, one pest'lent fine
(His beard no bigger though than thine)
Walked on before the rest:

Our landlord looks like nothing to him,
The king (God bless him) 'twould undo him,
Should he go still so drest.

But wot you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing;

The parson for him stay'd: