21 Robert Herrick Four Poems

Dr Kalyani Dixit

General Introduction

In this module we will discuss Robert Herrick as a poet and four poems by him. The titles of these poems are: To the Virgins, to make much of Time‘, Corinna’s Going A-Maying‘ , To Daffodils‘ and The Changes To Corinna‘. All these poems belong to the theme group of carpe diem

Robert Herrick, son of Nicholas Herrick and Julia Stone Herrick, was born in 1591. His father committed suicide when he was very young. But this gifted boy translated his sentiments into poetry. He died as a bachelor in 1674, at the age of eighty three. He belonged to the group of Cavalier poets. The other poets of this group were Sir John Suckling (1609 – 1642), Sir Richard Lovelace (1618 – 1658), and Thomas Carew. W. J. Long rightly defines these poets as persons who ‗…write songs generally in lighter vein, gay, trivial, often licentious, but who cannot altogether escape the tremendous seriousness of Puritanism.

Herrick indubitably was a true Cavalier poet but his style was quite different. As per W. R. Goodman,  Indeed, Herrick‘s gently mocking tone shows up the Stuart utopianism as hollow dreams. Herrick‘s chief stylistic models were the epigrammatic Latin Poetic Styles to be discovered in the works of Catullus and Horace. His delight in the epigrammatic style contrasts with his other poetic achievement, the creation of fantasies which combine pastoral motifs with minutely observed details of nature‖.

Robert Herrick was a prolific poet. He composed two thousand five hundred poems approximately. His best known work is Hesperides. His short poems are unique. Some of the poems were written in monometers.

Thus I

Pass by

And die,

As one

Unknown

And gone.

He also wrote some famous Carpe diem. Robert Herrick‘s collection of poems entitled Hesperides is noted for the famous carpe diem ‘To the Virgins, and To Make Much of Time’. His poems contain the message that the life is very short, and one must make the best use of this precious time. His other famous carpe diems are To Daffodils, To Silvia to Wed, A Lyric to Mirth, On Himself III, To Live Merrily and to Trust Good Verses, To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time, Best to Be Merry, The Changes to Corinna, Upon a Delaying Lady, To Live Freely, To Enjoy the Time, To a Bed of Tulips, To Electra (III), An End Decreed, To Youth, To Be Merry, To Blossoms and Corinna Going a -Maying.

He was the disciple of Ben Jonson. Therefore he was greatly influenced by him. He wrote some poems for him: Upon M. Ben Jonson Epig., Another, His Prayer to Ben Jonson, A Bacchanalian verse and An Ode for him. In His Prayer to Ben Jonson he writes:

When I a verse shall make,

Know I have pray‘d thee,

For old religion‘s sake,

Saint Ben, to aid me.

Make the way smooth for me,

When I, thy Herrick,

Honouring thee, on my knee

Offer my lyric.

Candles I‘ll give to thee,

And a new altar,

And thou, Saint Ben, shalt be

Writ in my Psalter.

He also composed some poems on the famous personalities of his times like, Sir Clipseby Crew, Mrs. Elizabeth Wheeler, the earl of Westmoreland, the Countess of Carlisle, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, Earl of Dorset, Sir John Barkley, Mr. Charles Cotton, and Mistress Bridgate Lowman.

The most common and frequently occurring character of his poems is Julia. He wrote many poems on Julia: Upon Julia‘s Fall, The Rosary, His Request to Julia, To Julia, Cherry pit, Cherry –ripe, Upon Her Blush, On Julia‘s Picture, To Daisies, Not to Shut So Soon, and Upon Julia‘s Clothes. Defining the beauty of Julia he writes:

Will ye hear what I can say

Briefly of my Julia?

Black and rolling is her eye,

Double-chinn‘d and forhead high;

Lips she has all ruby red,

Cheeks like cream enclareted;

And a nose that is the grace

And proscenium of her face.

So we may guess by these

The other parts will richly please.

Love is the central theme of his poems. His poems like Of Love, Upon Love, I Call and I Call, To Virgins, A Short Hymn to Venus, Not to Love, Upon Cupid, and Upon Her Voice show his ideas on love. As per James Wardwell, A life long bachelor, in poems like ―Upon Julia‘s Clothes‖ and ―Upon Julia‘s Nipples,‖ Herrick titillates. He finds a ―Delight in Disorder‖ of a woman imperfectly dressed in ―neglectful‖ cuff and ―tempestuous petticoat.

You say I love not, ‘Cause I do not play

Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.

You blame me too, because I can‘t devise

Some sport to please those babies in your eyes:

By love‘s religion, I must here confess it,

The most I love when I the least express it.

About Robert Herrick‘s Poems W.J. Long rightly says that: ―His poems cover a wide range, from trivial love songs, pagan in spirit, to hymns of deep religious feeling. Only the best of his poems should be read; and these are remarkable for their exquisite sentiment and their graceful, melodious expression.

His poems on Nature reflect his eye for beauty in natural phenomena. He wrote on daffodils, violets, roses, lilies, primroses, daisies, tulips, marigolds, pansies, and blossoms. In To A Bed of Tulips he writes:

Bright tulips, we do know

You had your coming hither,

And fading-time does show

That ye must quickly wither.

His religious poems are also very significant when he writes LET me sleep this night away,/ Till the Dawning of the day:/ then at th opening of mine eyes,/ I, and all the world shall rise‘. He alludes to the Last Judgement and the awakening of all the dead‘, in above mentioned lines. In Noble Numbers he writes:

To God

The work done; now let my Lawrell be

Given by none, but by Thy Selfe, to me:

That done, with Honour Thou dost me

Create

Thy Poet, and Thy prophet Lawreat,

Herrick himself says, I write to Hell‘, he further says that I sing of Heaven‘. H.R.Swardson in his article ‘Herrick and the Ceremony of Mirth’ writes; ―Hesperides cannot easily be divided into hellish poems and heavenly poems. Herrick refers to the same poems, suggesting perhaps that from one point of view they are hellish, from other heavenly, or that heaven and hell are both present‖.

He himself remained unmarried throughout his life. At one place he writes:

A bachelor I will

Live as I have liv‘d still

And never take a wife

To crucife my life.

In this module we will discuss four poems by Robert Herrick. The titles of these poems are:

To the Virgins, to make much of Time‘, ‗Corinna’s Going A-Maying‘, To Daffodils‘ and The Changes ToCorinna‘. All these poems belong to the theme group of carpe diem

1 Text of the Poem

To the Virgins, to make much of Time

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.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And, while ye may, go marry;

For, having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

This poem belongs to the genre of carpe diem. Carpe diem is originally a Latin term which is used as an admonition to capture the rapture of the moment without concern for the future.

Carpe + Diem = Carpe Diem.

I             II

Seize + Day = Seize the Day.

Horace, an eminent Roman poet used this term in his odes. In Odes, Book1, and Number11 he writes: ‗Spemlongamreseces. dumloquimurfugeritinvidaaetas : carpe diem , quam minimum credulapostero’. Which means ―to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have (already) fled: seize the day trusting as little as possible in the next (day) [/ future].‖ The ode conveys us the message of Horace that the future is unexpected or unforeseen so one must enjoy the life only today. Carpe Diem also defines the ‗destructiveness of all devouring time‘. Time causes gradual decay of all objects. Time is all powerful. Carpe Diem deals with the briefness of beauty and the devouring power of time.

The very first poem contains a message to ―seize the day‖. This is one of the most famous poems of Herrick which appeared in 1648 in his collection entitled Hesperides: or the works both humane and divine of Robert Herrick. He took its inspiration from Decimus Magnus Ausonius (AD 310 – 349 or 395), an eminent poet, prayer composer and writer of Rome. At one place he wrote: ―Collige, Virgo, rosas, dumflosnovas et nova pubes! Et memorestoaevum sic properaretuum.‖ which means virgins you ‗gather the roses, while blooms are fresh and youth is fresh‘ and don‘t forget that your life-time is running away quickly. (Four lined)

The poem is divided into four stanzas of four lines. In the opening stanza he weaves the metaphor of roses, when he writes: ‗Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,‘ here roses are vehicle of sensuality or the fulfilment of physical pleasures. Life of the virgin has been compared with the rose. The life span of virgin is as short as that of the roses. Time is running speedily. The flower that smiles today will wither away tomorrow. In the same way virgins also have a very short span of time to enjoy the pleasures of life.

In the second stanza the sun has been portrayed as a glorious lamp of heaven. The rising and setting of sun symbolize the blooming of youth, approach of old age and death.

The first stage of life is better than the second, second is better than the next and so on so forth. As childhood is better than youth and youth is better than the old age, as we go farther in life we witness the worse days.

In the last stanza he advices them to not be coy. The time spent once never returns. So they should make much use of their prime of youth, while their love and flesh are still young. So he urges the virgins to find their life partners in form of husbands and to pursue love, before they become old.

In this poem the first line rhymes with the third and second with the fourth line. Therefore the rhyme pattern can be defined thus: abab, cd cd, efef, ghgh. Each stanza contains a single sentence. This poem can be kept into the category of Lyric of rocking rhythm. As far as the meter is concerned the poem is composed in iambic tetra and trimeter, but first line opens with a trochee. Figures of speech like alliterations, metaphor and personification add charm to the poem. Andrew Marvell, a famous metaphorical poet also composed a poem on the same theme. The title of his Carpe diem is To His Coy Mistress, in which he persuades his mistress to establish a physical relationship and to leave the coyness since the time is less and he cannot pause the time to woo her. He writes:

But at my back I always hear

Time‘s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor in thy marble vault shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave‘s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do thee embrace.                        (To His Coy Mistress)

2 Text of the Poem Corinna’s Going A-Maying

Get up, get up for shame! The blooming morn

Upon her wings present the god unshorn.

See how aurora throws her fair

Fresh – quilted colours through the air:

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree!

Each flower has wept and bow‘d toward the east

Above an hour since, yet you not drest;

Nay! Notso much as out of bed?

When all the birds have matins said

And sung their thankful hymns, ‗tis sin,

Nay profanation, to keep in,

Whereas a thousand virgins on this day

Spring sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen

To come forth, like the spring time, fresh and green,

And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For jewels for your gown or hair:

Fear not; the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you:

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

Come and receive them while the light

Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:

And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himself, or else stands still

Till you come forth! Wash, dress, be brief in praying

Few beads are best when once we go a-maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark

How each field turns a street, each street a park

Made green and trimm’d with trees: see how

Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch: each porch, each door ere this

An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove;

As if here were those cooler shades of love.

Can such delights be in the street

And open fields and we not see’t?

Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey

The proclamation made for May:

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;

But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

There’s not a budding boy or girl this day

But is got up, and gone to bring in May.

A deal of youth, ere this, is come

Back, and with white-thorn laden home.

Some have despatch’d their cakes and cream

Before that we have left to dream:

And some have wept, and woo’d, and plighted troth,

And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:

Many a green-gown has been given;

Many a kiss, both odd and even:

Many a glance too has been sent

From out the eye, love’s firmament;

Many a jest told of the keys betraying

This night, and locks pick’d, yet we’re not a-Maying.

Come, let us go while we are in our prime;

And take the harmless folly of the time.

We shall grow old apace, and die

Before we know our liberty.

Our life is short, and our days run

As fast away as does the sun;

And, as a vapour or a drop of rain

Once lost, can ne’er be found again,

So when or you or I are made

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drowned with us in endless night.

Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,

Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

Corrinna‘s going A- Maying also falls in the group of Carpediem. It can be defined as a lyric with pastoral setting. Here Corrina is a beautiful girl who is being coaxed by a young man who is supposed to be her lover. The poem portrays the enjoyments and celebrations on Mayday [i.e.May 1]. Here the poet calls his beloved to get out of her bed and join the company of other people celebrating Mayday. In the very first line, two opening words are  repeated two times. Young people go out on Mayday to pick the flowers. Sun has been presented as the god unshorn‘. The sunrise reminds the poet to seize the day. May symbolize the life itself.

The poet urges her to put on ‗foliage‘ in the same way as the nature has put on her the green drapery. She should not be more worried about her jewels, gown or hair. Leaves will decorate her in form of jewellery. She should be brief in her praying since they are ready to go a  maying. She should not waste the time in other works or duties. Time is fleeting. So she should run and enjoy the festivities of life. In the third stanza he says that on Mayday each field turns into a street and each street into a park trimmed with trees. Everywhere there is green colour. The fields are like an ark or tabernacle. ‗To stay inside and pray would be a sin today. Again, quite a reversal from what the Puritans would have said. It is ironic that he says they must go because it is sinful not to go, since they are more likely to sin in the woods with all those other young people.‘

(http://www2.latech.edu/~bmagee/210/herrick/corinna_notes.htm)

All the youth are celebrating outside. In the fourth stanza marriage has been given importance. Many young boys and girls have become engaged for marriage, they have even chosen a priest for this purpose. The poet wants these Mayday celebrations to lead to love and marriage. The green gown of the girls shows their enjoyment in the lap of nature. Their dresses got green strains because of rolling in the grass.

The last stanza has been cited extensively as a carpe diem. The poet calls his beloved to enjoy the life in the prime of her youth. Soon she shall grow old and die. Life is brief and days are running swiftly. Lost days of life will never return as a drop of rain or vapour. Time is destroying everything and they are also decaying. Seventy lines of this poem are divided into five stanzas of fourteen lines each. In each stanza there are three couplets and two sets of four lines. The design of stanza can be defined clearly with the following figure:

1st couplet – Iambic Pentameter

4 lines –          Iambic Tetrameter

2nd couplet – Iambic Pentameter

4 lines –       Iambic Tetratmeter

3rd couplet –Iambic Pentameter

Each line rhymes with the next one, eg. first line rhymes with the second, third with the fourth, fifth with the sixth and so on so forth. The poet has made use of figures of speech like alliteration, simile, hyperbole and metaphor to make his poem more attractive.

3 Text of the poem

To Daffodils

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

Has not attain‘d his noon.

Stay, stay

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to the evensong;

And, having pray‘d together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,

We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you, or anything.

We die

As your hours do, and dry

Away

Like to the summer‘s rain;

Or as the pearls of morning‘s dew,

Ne‘er to be found again.

To Daffodils‘ is a short poem by Herrick which is based on the theme of carpe diem. The poet expresses his grief over the quick decay of this beautiful flower. They bloom for a very short period of time. The fast dying of such flowers makes the poet sad. These flowers die before the noon time. They can‘t even stay till the sunset. Here Daffodils symbolize the human life, which is as brief as the life of this daffodil. He praises the beauty of these flowers. Time of day symbolically refers to various stages of life. In the first stanza ‗early – rising sun‘ symbolizes the youth, noon‘ to the middle age and ‗even –song‘ to the old age‘. The theme of this poem is again the briefness of life.

Then he says that just like daffodils we too have a short spring. Here spring season is symbolic of youth. Both of these things grow fast and decay quickly. The life has been compared with the rain of summer season, which also lasts for a very short –time. He also draws a parallel between dew-drops and life. Dew drops vanish quickly. The life also ends in the same way. Beauty cannot stay forever. The tone and mood of the poem is melancholic where the poet mourns over the short lived nature of life. We should make the best use of our lives before we lose it.

To Daffodils‘ is a poem of twenty lines. This is divided into two stanzas of ten lines. The poem uses the metaphor of sun to denote the stages of life. The rhyme scheme adopted by the poet is unusual. In both the stanzas second line rhymes with the fourth, third with seventh , fifth with the sixth and eighth line rhymes with the tenth. Simile has been used dextrously by Herrick to show the briefness of life.

As your hours do, and dry

A way

Like to the summer‘s rain;

Or as the pearls of morning‘s dew

Ne‘er to be found again.

William Wordsworth, an eminent nature poet, has also composed a lovely poem on daffodils. These daffodils also captured the attention of Wordsworth. As per Maria Urquidez, ‗The poems “The Daffodils” and “To Daffodils” are two very diverse poems. Although they both present completely different ideas, they also contain very little similarities. Even though both authors use a daffodil to express their view points towards life, they both convey very different thoughts. They both symbolize life through nature….‘

(http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Daffodils-And-To-Daffodils-1854591.html)

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed–and gazed–but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

                                                                   (The Daffodils by William Wordsworth)

4 Text of the poem

The Changes To Corinna

BE not proud, but now incline

Your soft ear to discpline.

You have changes in your life—

Sometimes peace and sometimes strife ;

You have ebbs of face and flows,

As your health or comes or goes ;

You have hopes, and doubts, and fears

Numberless, as are your hairs.

You have pulses that do beat

High, and passions less of heat.

You are young, but must be old,

And, to these, ye must be told

Time ere long will come and plough

Loathed furrows in your brow :

And the dimness of your eye

Will no other thing imply

But you must die

As well as I.

In this poem he addresses to Corinna once again. Here he advocates changes in human life. Ups and downs of life form the normal course of human life. Human beings face unlimited hopes, doubts and fears. Here he warns her that being young and beautiful she must not be proud of herself because she too is destined to be old. Her bright and charming forehead will be ploughed by the cruel time. Her physical beauty will decay very soon. Her shinning eyes will soon diminish and like all other living creatures she too will be destroyed and dead. The poet warns her by saying that both of them will die soon so they must make best use of their lives by enjoying itself.

It‘s a short and simple poem of eighteen lines. The first line rhymes with the second, the third with the fourth and so on so forth. Herrick makes use of simile in abundance. Time has been personified in this poem.

The same idea has been expressed by William Shakespeare in his sonnet where he writes about the cruelty of time. In sonnet 77 he addresses his fair friend and says:

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

The vacant leaves thy mind‘s impr’nt will bear,

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial‘s shady stealth mayst know

Time‘s thievish progress to eternity.

                         (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 77)

In sonnet 100 Shakespeare invokes the muse to satirize time‘s destructive and aging powers, and to prevent time‘s knife from cutting the beauty of his fair friend.

Rise, resty Muse; my love‘s sweet face survey,

If time have any wrinkle graven there;

If any, be a satire to decay,

And make time‘s spoils despised everywhere.

Give my love fame faster than time wastes life.

So thou prevent‘st his scythe and crooked knife.

                                                       (Shakespeare, Sonnet 100)

The effect of time can be seen on the face of the Fair Youth.

The sweet beauty of the friend is also changing.

Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

                              (Shakespeare, Sonnet 104)

Robert Herrick‘s contribution although less known and admired is of great value. His short love poems are titillating or erotic. Especially his poems addressed to Julia are lustful and raunchy. But his most precious gift to the Cavalier poetry is in form of carpe diem. All four poems in this module are written on the theme of carpe diem; ‗to live life to the fullest‘. The echo of his poems is heard clearly in the later works of other poets.

Reference

• Goodman,W.R. :  English Literature For Competitive Examination Third Revised Edition.
• Doaba publications, Delhi.2002.
• http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herrick/changes.htm
• http://stonework04.blogspot.in/2007/04/robert-herrick-tithe-of-praise.html
• http://web.archive.org/web/20070609203331re_/www.geocities.com/milleldred/herrickdeneef.html
• http://www.studymode.com/essays/The-Daffodils-And-To-Daffodils-1854591.html
• Long, W. J : English Literature: Its History and its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World. Maple Press.2010.
• Kumar, Satish and Bansal, Anupama, A History of English Literature. Lakshmi Narain Agarwal, Agra.