WHY FLOWERS CHANGE COLOUR
These fresh beauties (we can prove)
Once were virgins sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers. Still in some
Colours go and colours come.
- Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick, noted Royalist and vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, was the earthiest and easily the most accessible of Ben Jonson's many 17th century followers. His lines have been a staple of the wooing repertory for nearly 400 years, and his poems, though laden with the allusions and archetypal figurations expected of poets of the time, are still vibrant in their language and directly communicative to the modern reader. Any collection of Herrick's work is sure to be boldly romantic, possibly lusty, and probably quite funny.
Here's one of his best and most well-known (and most anthologized) works.
DELIGHT IN DISORDER
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
- Robert Herrick
Legal notice:
Some may feel that the inclusion of works not in the public domain is a violation of the fair-use doctrine of US copyright law. I obviously do not agree, but I will gladly defer to the wishes of the rightsholder, and if anyone wishes for a post of their work or work for which they own the intellectual rights to be taken down, they may ask for its removal and it will be so. I claim no ownership and have no rights as to the works I will be posting, save for any that were written by me.
These fresh beauties (we can prove)
Once were virgins sick of love,
Turn'd to flowers. Still in some
Colours go and colours come.
- Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick, noted Royalist and vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire, was the earthiest and easily the most accessible of Ben Jonson's many 17th century followers. His lines have been a staple of the wooing repertory for nearly 400 years, and his poems, though laden with the allusions and archetypal figurations expected of poets of the time, are still vibrant in their language and directly communicative to the modern reader. Any collection of Herrick's work is sure to be boldly romantic, possibly lusty, and probably quite funny.
Here's one of his best and most well-known (and most anthologized) works.
DELIGHT IN DISORDER
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness :
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction :
An erring lace which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher :
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly :
A winning wave (deserving note)
In the tempestuous petticoat :
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
- Robert Herrick
Legal notice:
Some may feel that the inclusion of works not in the public domain is a violation of the fair-use doctrine of US copyright law. I obviously do not agree, but I will gladly defer to the wishes of the rightsholder, and if anyone wishes for a post of their work or work for which they own the intellectual rights to be taken down, they may ask for its removal and it will be so. I claim no ownership and have no rights as to the works I will be posting, save for any that were written by me.
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