The Hesperides & Noble Numbers Part 52

In 405. TO HIS BOOK., _Chipperfeild_, has been retained as it is unclear whether this is a misprint, or intentional.

In 101. BARLEY-BREAK; OR, LAST IN h.e.l.l. No corresponding note can be found for _Barley-break, a country game resembling prisoners'

base_.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

ROBERT HERRICK

THE HESPERIDES & n.o.bLE NUMBERS: EDITED BY ALFRED POLLARD WITH A PREFACE BY A. C. SWINBURNE

VOL. II.

_REVISED EDITION_

[Ill.u.s.tration]

LONDON: NEW YORK: LAWRENCE & BULLEN, LTD., CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 1898. 1898.

HESPERIDES.

569. A HYMN TO THE GRACES.

When I love (as some have told, Love I shall when I am old), O ye Graces! make me fit For the welcoming of it.

Clean my rooms, as temples be, T' entertain that deity.

Give me words wherewith to woo, Suppling and successful too; Winning postures, and, withal, Manners each way musical: Sweetness to allay my sour And unsmooth behaviour.

For I know you have the skill Vines to prune, though not to kill, And of any wood ye see, You can make a Mercury.

_Suppling_, softening.

_Mercury_, G.o.d of eloquence and inventor of the lyre.

570. TO SILVIA.

No more, my Silvia, do I mean to pray For those good days that ne'er will come away.

I want belief; O gentle Silvia, be The patient saint, and send up vows for me.

573. THE POET HATH LOST HIS PIPE.

I cannot pipe as I was wont to do, Broke is my reed, hoa.r.s.e is my singing, too; My wearied oat I'll hang upon the tree, And give it to the sylvan deity.

574. TRUE FRIENDs.h.i.+P.

Wilt thou my true friend be?

Then love not mine, but me.

575. THE APPARITION OF HIS MISTRESS CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM.

_Desunt nonnulla ----_

Come then, and like two doves with silv'ry wings, Let our souls fly to th' shades where ever springs Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil, Roses and ca.s.sia crown the untill'd soil.

Where no disease reigns, or infection comes To blast the air, but ambergris and gums This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire, More sweet than storax from the hallowed fire, Where ev'ry tree a wealthy issue bears Of fragrant apples, blus.h.i.+ng plums, or pears; And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles, shew Like morning suns.h.i.+ne tinselling the dew.

Here in green meadows sits eternal May, Purfling the margents, while perpetual day So double gilds the air, as that no night Can ever rust th' enamel of the light.

Here, naked younglings, handsome striplings, run Their goals for virgins' kisses; which when done, Then unto dancing forth the learned round Commixed they meet, with endless roses crown'd.

And here we'll sit on primrose-banks, and see Love's chorus led by Cupid; and we'll be Two loving followers, too, unto the grove Where poets sing the stories of our love.

There thou shalt hear divine Musaeus sing Of Hero and Leander; then I'll bring Thee to the stand, where honour'd Homer reads His Odysseys and his high Iliads; About whose throne the crowd of poets throng To hear the incantation of his tongue: To Linus, then to Pindar; and that done, I'll bring thee, Herrick, to Anacreon, Quaffing his full-crown'd bowls of burning wine, And in his raptures speaking lines of thine, Like to his subject; and as his frantic Looks show him truly Baccha.n.a.lian-like Besmear'd with grapes, welcome he shall thee thither, Where both may rage, both drink and dance together.

Then stately Virgil, witty Ovid, by Whom fair Corinna sits, and doth comply With ivory wrists his laureate head, and steeps His eye in dew of kisses while he sleeps; Then soft Catullus, sharp-fang'd Martial, And towering Lucan, Horace, Juvenal, And snaky Persius, these, and those, whom rage (Dropt for the jars of heaven) fill'd t' engage All times unto their frenzies,--thou shalt there Behold them in a s.p.a.cious theatre.

Among which glories, crowned with sacred bays And flatt'ring ivy, two recite their plays-- Beaumont and Fletcher, swans to whom all ears Listen, while they, like syrens in their spheres, Sing their Evadne; and still more for thee There yet remains to know than thou can'st see By glim'ring of a fancy. Do but come, And there I'll show thee that capacious room In which thy father Jonson now is plac'd, As in a globe of radiant fire, and grac'd To be in that orb crown'd, that doth include Those prophets of the former magnitude, And he one chief; but hark, I hear the c.o.c.k (The bellman of the night) proclaim the clock Of late struck one, and now I see the prime Of day break from the pregnant east: 'tis time I vanish; more I had to say, But night determines here, away.

_Purfling_, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, embroidering.

_Round_, rustic dance.

_Comply_, encircle.

_Their Evadne_, the sister of Melantius in their play "The Maid's Tragedy".

576. LIFE IS THE BODY'S LIGHT.

Life is the body's light, which once declining, Those crimson clouds i' th' cheek and lips leave s.h.i.+ning.

Those counter-changed tabbies in the air (The sun once set) all of one colour are.

So, when Death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place, And dismal darkness then doth s.m.u.tch the face.

_Tabbies_, shot silks.

579. LOVE LIGHTLY PLEASED.

Let fair or foul my mistress be, Or low, or tall, she pleaseth me; Or let her walk, or stand, or sit, The posture hers, I'm pleas'd with it; Or let her tongue be still, or stir, Graceful is every thing from her; Or let her grant, or else deny, _My love will fit each history_.

580. THE PRIMROSE.

Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year?

Ask me why I send to you This primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew?

I will whisper to your ears: The sweets of love are mix'd with tears.

Ask me why this flower does show So yellow-green, and sickly too?