No More Learning

51. _Ennobled numbers. _ This poem is often quoted to prove that
Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the
reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would
rather prove the opposite.

52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice. _ Jerem. xxii. 29: O
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

56. _Love give me more such nights as these. _ A reminiscence of
Marlowe's version of Ovid, _Amor_. I. v. 26: "Jove send me more such
afternoons as this".

72.
_Upon his Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, wife to his
brother Thomas (see _infra_, 106).

74. _Love makes me write what shame forbids to speak. _ Ovid, _Phaedra to
Hippol. _: Dicere quae puduit scribere jussit amor.

_Give me a kiss. _ Herrick is here imitating the well-known lines of
Catullus to Lesbia (_Carm. _ v. ):--

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, etc.

77. _To the King, upon his coming with his army into the west. _ Essex
had marched into the west in June, 1644, relieved Lyme, and captured
royal fortresses in Dorset and Devon. Charles followed him into "the
drooping west," and, in September, the Parliamentary infantry were
forced to surrender, while Essex himself escaped by sea. Herrick's
"white omens" were thus fulfilled.

79. _To the King and Queen upon their unhappy distances.