But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and
unperplexed
the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here:
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd;
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
_Knock at a star with my exalted head_.
Robert Herrick
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.
612. THE BAD SEASON MAKES THE POET SAD.
Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to the heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again,
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and
unperplexed
the seasons were,
As when the sweet Maria lived here:
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd;
And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
_Knock at a star with my exalted head_.
_Knock at a star_ (sublimi feriam sidera vertice). Horace Ode, i. 1.
613. TO VULCAN.
Thy sooty godhead I desire
Still to be ready with thy fire;
That should my book despised be,
Acceptance it might find of thee.
614. LIKE PATTERN, LIKE PEOPLE.
_This is the height of justice: that to do
Thyself which thou put'st other men unto.
As great men lead, the meaner follow on,
Or to the good, or evil action._
615. PURPOSES.
No wrath of men or rage of seas
Can shake a just man's purposes:
No threats of tyrants or the grim
Visage of them can alter him;
But what he doth at first intend,
That he holds firmly to the end.
