A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

68. THE BAD SEASON MAKES THE POET SAD

     Dull to myself, and almost dead to these,
     My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
     Lost to all music now, since every thing
     Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
     Sick is the land to th' heart; and doth endure
     More dangerous faintings by her desperate cure.
     But if that golden age would come again,
     And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
     If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were,
     As when the sweet Maria lived here;
     I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
     In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd:
     And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead,
     Knock at a star with my exalted head.