Robert Herrick (1591 – 1674)
17th century English poet.
Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be,
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.
I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers.
I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
Thus times do shift, each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
Fair daffadills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying.
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a Maying.
We such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.
Get up, sweet Slug-a-bed, and see
The dew bespangling herb and tree.
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty, add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
Before man's fall the rose was born,
St. Ambrose says, without the thorn;
But for man's fault then was the thorn
Without the fragrant rose-bud born; But ne'er the rose without the thorn.