CVI.

THE GOOD-NIGHT, OR BLESSING.

BLESSINGS in abundance come
To the bride, and to her groom!
May the bed, and this short night
Know the fulness of delight!
Pleasures many here attend ye;
And, ere long, a boy Love send ye,
Curl'd, and comely, and so trim,
Maids in time may ravish him!
Thus a dew of graces fall

On ye both! Good-night to all!

CVII.

TO DAFFODILS.

FAIR daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun

Has not attain'd his noon:

Stay, stay,

Until the hast'ning day

Has run

But to the evensong;
And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along!

We have short time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring,

POEM CVII.] These lines may serve to convince us, how greatly our bard excelled in the moral, and pathetic. His choice of measure too is admirably adapted to the strain.

H

As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or any thing:

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.

CVIII.

UPON A LADY THAT DIED IN CHILDBED, AND

LEFT A DAUGHTER BEHIND HER

As gillyflowers do but stay

To blow, and seed, and so away;
So you, sweet lady, sweet as May,
The garden's glory liv'd awhile,

To lend the world your scent, and smile:
But, when your own fair print was set
Once in a virgin flosculet,

Sweet as yourself, and newly blown,
To give that life resign'd your own;
But so, as still the mother's pow'r
Lives in the pretty lady-flow'r.

CIX.

A NEW-YEAR'S-GIFT

SENT TO SIR SIMEON STEWARD.

No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late-spawn'd Tityries;

POEM CIX. The gentleman here addressed was, I presume, Sir Simeon Steward, or Stuart, Knt. of Cambridgeshire, whose eldest son, Robert, married Mary, youngest daughter of Sir

No closet plot, or open vent,
That frights men with a parliament;
No new device, or late-found trick,
To read by th' stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the state, or wring
The freeborn nostrils of the king,
We send to you; but here a jolly
Verse, crown'd with ivy and with holly;
That tells of winter's tales, and mirth
That milkmaids make about the hearth;
Of Christmas sports; the wassail bowl,
That's tost up, after fox-i'th'-hole;
Of blindman's-buff; and of the care
That young men have to shoe the mare;
Of twelfthtide cakes, of pease, and beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
When as ye chuse your king and queen,
And cry out, "hey, for our town green!"
Of ash-heaps, in the which ye use
Husbands and wives by streaks to chuse ;
Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds;

Thomas Reresby, Knt. of Thribergh, Yorkshire. Such a personage at least was living at the period Herrick wrote. And I conclude he was the same with Sir Simon Steward, a knight made by James the first, of whom Fuller, in his Cambridgeshire Worthies, says thus: "I remember he lived, "after he was knighted, a fellow-commoner in Trinity "Hall."

The first eight lines of the poem have a probable reference to political circumstances, seemingly belonging to the period of time at which it was composed; and, as these perhaps cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, so the lines must of course remain obscure to the readers of our day. Whether the burning of the Spanish Armada, and the Gun powder-plot may be among the matter alluded to, which has been suggested, I will not decide: the one event took place three years before our poet's birth, the other fourteen after. Robert Herrick would appear to have been born 1591; he was at least baptized August 24th of that year.

Of these, and such-like things, for shift,
We send instead of new-year's-gift:

Read then, and, when your faces shine
With buxom meat and cap'ring wine,
Remember us in cups full crown'd,
And let our city health go round,

Quite through the young maids and the men,
To the ninth number, if not ten;

Until the fired chesnuts leap

For joy, to see the fruits ye reap

From the plump chalice, and the cup,
That tempts till it be tossed up:
Then, as ye sit about your embers,
Call not to mind those fled Decembers;
But think on these that are t' appear,
As daughters to the instant year :
Sit crown'd with rose-buds; and carouse
'Till Liber Pater* twirls the house

About your ears; and lay upon

The year, your cares, that's fled and gone;
And let the russet swains the plough,
And harrow hang up, resting now;
And to the bagpipe all address,

Till sleep takes place of weariness:

And thus throughout with Christmas plays
Frolick the full twelve holidays.

CX.

MATTINS, OR MORNING PRAYER.

WHEN with the virgin morning thou dost rise, Crossing thyself, come thus to sacrifice : First wash thy heart in innocence; then bring Pure hands, pure habits, pure pure every thing;

Bacchus.

Next to the altar humbly kneel, and thence
Give up thy soul in clouds of frankincense;
Thy golden censers, fill'd with odours sweet,
Shall make thy actions with their ends to meet.

CXI.

EVENSONG.

BEGIN with Jove; then is the work half done,
And runs most smoothly, when 'tis well begun :
Jove's is the first and last; the morn's his due,
The midst is thine; but Jove's the ev'ning too:
As sure as mattins does to him belong,
So sure he lays claim to the evensong.

CXII.

THE BRACELET.

TO JULIA.

WHY I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this my silken twist,
For what other reason is't,

But to shew thee how in part
Thou my pretty captive art?
But thy bondslave is my heart,

"Tis but silk that bindeth thee;

Knap the thread, and thou art free;
But 'tis otherwise with me:

POEM CXI.] So Guarini, in his Pastor Fido, Atto 1. Sc. 1. Chi ben commincia bà la metà del opra;

Ne si commincia ben, se non dal cielo,