No More Learning

45. THE ROSARY.

One ask'd me where the roses grew:
I bade him not go seek,
But forthwith bade my Julia show
A bud in either cheek.


46. UPON CUPID.

Old wives have often told how they
Saw Cupid bitten by a flea;
And thereupon, in tears half drown'd,
He cried aloud: Help, help the wound!
He wept, he sobb'd, he call'd to some
To bring him lint and balsamum,
To make a tent, and put it in
Where the stiletto pierced the skin;
Which, being done, the fretful pain
Assuaged, and he was well again.

_Tent_, a roll of lint for probing wounds.


47. THE PARCAE; OR, THREE DAINTY DESTINIES: THE ARMILLET.

Three lovely sisters working were,
As they were closely set,
Of soft and dainty maidenhair
A curious armillet.
I, smiling, asked them what they did,
Fair Destinies all three,
Who told me they had drawn a thread
Of life, and 'twas for me.
They show'd me then how fine 'twas spun,
And I reply'd thereto,--
"I care not now how soon 'tis done,
Or cut, if cut by you".


48. SORROWS SUCCEED.
When one is past, another care we have:
_Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave_.


49. CHERRY-PIT.

Julia and I did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit:
She threw; I cast; and, having thrown,
I got the pit, and she the stone.

_Cherry-pit_, a game in which cherry-stones were pitched into a small
hole.


50. TO ROBIN REDBREAST.

Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
With leaves and moss-work for to cover me:
And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
For epitaph, in foliage, next write this:
_Here, here the tomb of Robin Herrick is_.


51. DISCONTENTS IN DEVON.

More discontents I never had
Since I was born than here,
Where I have been, and still am sad,
In this dull Devonshire;
Yet, justly too, I must confess
I ne'er invented such
Ennobled numbers for the press,
Than where I loathed so much.


52. TO HIS PATERNAL COUNTRY.

O earth! earth!