_Cess_, the parish
assessment
for church purposes.
Robert Herrick
97. DUTY TO TYRANTS.
Good princes must be pray'd for; for the bad
They must be borne with, and in rev'rence had.
Do they first pill thee, next pluck off thy skin?
_Good children kiss the rods that punish sin_.
Touch not the tyrant; let the gods alone
To strike him dead that but usurps a throne.
_Pill_, plunder.
98. BEING ONCE BLIND, HIS REQUEST TO BIANCA.
When age or chance has made me blind,
So that the path I cannot find,
And when my falls and stumblings are
More than the stones i' th' street by far,
Go thou afore, and I shall well
Follow thy perfumes by the smell;
Or be my guide, and I shall be
Led by some light that flows from thee.
Thus held or led by thee, I shall
In ways confus'd nor slip or fall.
100. NO WANT WHERE THERE'S LITTLE.
To bread and water none is poor;
And having these, what need of more?
Though much from out the cess be spent,
_Nature with little is content_.
_Cess_, the parish assessment for church purposes.
101. BARLEY-BREAK; OR, LAST IN HELL.
We two are last in hell; what may we fear
To be tormented or kept pris'ners here?
Alas! if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first.
_Barley-break_, a country game resembling prisoners' base. See Note.
_Hell_, the "middle den," the occupants of which had to catch the other
players.
102. THE DEFINITION OF BEAUTY.
Beauty no other thing is than a beam
Flashed out between the middle and extreme.
103. TO DIANEME.
Dear, though to part it be a hell,
Yet, Dianeme, now farewell:
Thy frown last night did bid me go,
But whither only grief does know.
I do beseech thee ere we part,
If merciful as fair thou art,
Or else desir'st that maids should tell
Thy pity by love's chronicle,
O Dianeme, rather kill
Me, than to make me languish still!