A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick






67. HIS AGE:

     DEDICATED TO HIS PECULIAR FRIEND,
     MR JOHN WICKES, UNDER THE NAME OF
     POSTUMUS

     Ah, Posthumus!  our years hence fly
     And leave no sound:  nor piety,
     Or prayers, or vow
     Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
     But we must on,
     As fate does lead or draw us; none,
     None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
     The doom of cruel Proserpine.

     The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
     Must all be left, no one plant found
     To follow thee,
     Save only the curst cypress-tree!
     —A merry mind
     Looks forward, scorns what's left behind;
     Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
     And here enjoy our holiday.

     We've seen the past best times, and these
     Will ne'er return; we see the seas,
     And moons to wane,
     But they fill up their ebbs again;
     But vanish'd man,
     Like to a lily lost, ne'er can,
     Ne'er can repullulate, or bring
     His days to see a second spring.

     But on we must, and thither tend,
     Where Ancus and rich Tullus blend
     Their sacred seed;
     Thus has infernal Jove decreed;
     We must be made,
     Ere long a song, ere long a shade.
     Why then, since life to us is short,
     Let's make it full up by our sport.

     Crown we our heads with roses then,
     And 'noint with Tyrian balm; for when
     We two are dead,
     The world with us is buried.
     Then live we free
     As is the air, and let us be
     Our own fair wind, and mark each one
     Day with the white and lucky stone.

     We are not poor, although we have
     No roofs of cedar, nor our brave
     Baiae, nor keep
     Account of such a flock of sheep;
     Nor bullocks fed
     To lard the shambles; barbels bred
     To kiss our hands; nor do we wish
     For Pollio's lampreys in our dish.

     If we can meet, and so confer,
     Both by a shining salt-cellar,
     And have our roof,
     Although not arch'd, yet weather-proof,
     And cieling free,
     From that cheap candle-baudery;
     We'll eat our bean with that full mirth
     As we were lords of all the earth.

     Well, then, on what seas we are tost,
     Our comfort is, we can't be lost.
     Let the winds drive
     Our bark, yet she will keep alive
     Amidst the deeps;
     'Tis constancy, my Wickes, which keeps
     The pinnace up; which, though she errs
     I' th' seas, she saves her passengers.

     Say, we must part; sweet mercy bless
     Us both i' th' sea, camp, wilderness!
     Can we so far
     Stray, to become less circular
     Than we are now?
     No, no, that self-same heart, that vow
     Which made us one, shall ne'er undo,
     Or ravel so, to make us two.

     Live in thy peace; as for myself,
     When I am bruised on the shelf
     Of time, and show
     My locks behung with frost and snow;
     When with the rheum,
     The cough, the pthisic, I consume
     Unto an almost nothing; then,
     The ages fled, I'll call again,

     And with a tear compare these last
     Lame and bad times with those are past,
     While Baucis by,
     My old lean wife, shall kiss it dry;
     And so we'll sit
     By th' fire, foretelling snow and slit
     And weather by our aches, grown
     Now old enough to be our own

     True calendars, as puss's ear
     Wash'd o'er 's, to tell what change is near;
     Then to assuage
     The gripings of the chine by age,
     I'll call my young
     Iulus to sing such a song
     I made upon my Julia's breast,
     And of her blush at such a feast.

     Then shall he read that flower of mine
     Enclosed within a crystal shrine;
     A primrose next;
     A piece then of a higher text;
     For to beget
     In me a more transcendant heat,
     Than that insinuating fire
     Which crept into each aged sire

     When the fair Helen from her eyes
     Shot forth her loving sorceries;
     At which I'll rear
     Mine aged limbs above my chair;
     And hearing it,
     Flutter and crow, as in a fit
     Of fresh concupiscence, and cry,
     'No lust there's like to Poetry.'

     Thus frantic, crazy man, God wot,
     I'll call to mind things half-forgot;
     And oft between
     Repeat the times that I have seen;
     Thus ripe with tears,
     And twisting my Iulus' hairs,
     Doting, I'll weep and say, 'In truth,
     Baucis, these were my sins of youth.'

     Then next I'Il cause my hopeful lad,
     If a wild apple can be had,
     To crown the hearth;
     Lar thus conspiring with our mirth;
     Then to infuse
     Our browner ale into the cruse;
     Which, sweetly spiced, we'll first carouse
     Unto the Genius of the house.

     Then the next health to friends of mine.
     Loving the brave Burgundian wine,
     High sons of pith,
     Whose fortunes I have frolick'd with;
     Such as could well
     Bear up the magic bough and spell;
     And dancing 'bout the mystic Thyrse,
     Give up the just applause to verse;

     To those, and then again to thee,
     We'll drink, my Wickes, until we be
     Plump as the cherry,
     Though not so fresh, yet full as merry
     As the cricket,
     The untamed heifer, or the pricket,
     Until our tongues shall tell our ears,
     We're younger by a score of years.

     Thus, till we see the fire less shine
     From th' embers than the kitling's eyne,
     We'll still sit up,
     Sphering about the wassail cup,
     To all those times
     Which gave me honour for my rhymes;
     The coal once spent, we'll then to bed,
     Far more than night bewearied.

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