No More Learning

PAINS WITHOUT PROFIT.

A long life's-day I've taken pains
For very little, or no gains;
The evening's come, here now I'll stop,
And work no more, but shut up shop.


603. TO HIS BOOK.

Be bold, my book, nor be abash'd, or fear
The cutting thumb-nail or the brow severe;
But by the Muses swear all here is good
If but well read, or, ill read, understood.


604. HIS PRAYER TO BEN JONSON.

When I a verse shall make,
Know I have pray'd thee,
For old religion's sake,
Saint Ben, to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,
When I, thy Herrick,
Honouring thee, on my knee
Offer my lyric.

Candles I'll give to thee,
And a new altar,
And thou, Saint Ben, shall be
Writ in my Psalter.


605. POVERTY AND RICHES.

Give Want her welcome if she comes; we find
Riches to be but burdens to the mind.


606. AGAIN.
Who with a little cannot be content,
Endures an everlasting punishment.


607. THE COVETOUS STILL CAPTIVES.

Let's live with that small pittance that we have;
_Who covets more, is evermore a slave_.


608. LAWS.

When laws full power have to sway, we see
Little or no part there of tyranny.


609. OF LOVE.

I'll get me hence,
Because no fence
Or fort that I can make here,
But love by charms,
Or else by arms
Will storm, or starving take here.


611. TO HIS MUSE.

Go woo young Charles no more to look
Than but to read this in my book:
How Herrick begs, if that he can-
Not like the muse, to love the man,
Who by the shepherds sung, long since,
The star-led birth of Charles the Prince.

_Long since_, _i. e. _, in the "Pastoral upon the Birth of Prince
Charles" (213), where see Note.