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 rosebuds, and carouse
Till Liber Pater twirls the house
About your ears; and lay upon
The year your cares that's fled and gone.
Robert Herrick
Pleasures many here attend ye,
And, ere long, a boy Love send ye
Curled and comely, and so trim,
Maids, in time, may ravish him.
Thus a dew of graces fall
On ye both; good-night to all.
316. 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 hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
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's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
318. UPON A LADY THAT DIED IN CHILD-BED, AND LEFT A DAUGHTER BEHIND HER.
As gilliflowers do but stay
To blow, and seed, and so away;
So you, sweet lady, sweet as May,
The garden's glory, lived a while
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, resigned your own:
But so as still the mother's power
Lives in the pretty lady-flower.
319. A NEW-YEAR'S GIFT SENT TO SIR SIMON STEWARD.
No news of navies burnt at seas;
No noise of late-spawn'd tittyries;
No closet plot, or open vent,
That frights men with a parliament;
No new device or late-found trick
To read by the stars the kingdom's sick;
No gin to catch the state, or wring
The freeborn nostril 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 blind-man-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoe the mare;
Of Twelfth-tide cakes, of peas and beans,
Wherewith you make those merry scenes,
Whenas ye choose 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 choose;
Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds:
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 rosebuds, 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
Frolic the full twelve holidays.
_Tittyries_, _i.e._, the Tityre-tues; see Note.
_Fox-i'-th'-hole_, a game of hopping.
_To shoe the mare_, or, shoe the wild mare, a Christmas game.
_Buxom_, tender.
_Liber Pater_, Father Bacchus.
320. MATINS; 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 everything.
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.
