A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

195. 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 mixt with tears.

     Ask me why this flower does show
     So yellow-green, and sickly too?
     Ask me why the stalk is weak
     And bending, yet it doth not break?
     I will answer,—these discover
     What fainting hopes are in a lover.