bride over the threshold, the blessing of the sack-posset, and the scramble for the nuts scattered by the bridegroom-Catullus's nec nuces pueris neget.

Similar to this in general style, and excelling it in beauty of imagery, is the nuptial song in honour of his friend, Sir Clipseby Crew (283), the opening stanzas of which have much of the splendour and sustained harmony of Spenser :

What's that we see from far? the spring of day
Bloom'd from the east, or fair enjewell'd May
Blown out of April, or some new
Star, filled with glory to our view,
Reaching at Heaven,

To add a nobler planet to the seven?
Say, or do we not descry

Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany
To move, or rather the

Emergent Venus from the sea?

'Tis she! 'tis she! or else some more divine
Enlighten'd substance, mark how from the shrine
Of holy saints she paces on,
Treading upon vermilion

And amber: spic

ing the chaft air with fumes of Paradise.

Then come on, come on and yield

A savour like unto a blessed field,

When the bedabbled morn

Washes the golden ears of corn.

CHAPTER III

THE NON-LYRICAL POEMS OF THE HESperides

T

HE line of division between the lyrical poems of the Hesperides and those of a non-lyrical character is exceedingly hard to draw. The term lyric is at best vague, and, in the case of Herrick, the point at which the lyric ceases and the descriptive poem or epigram begins is often a vanishing point. Poems like The Hock-Cart-which is more descriptive than lyrical-were brought under consideration in the preceding chapter, because of their close connection with poems the lyrical quality of which is beyond dispute; and, for the same reason, other poems of the nature of lyrics find a place here. In the case of yet other verses, verses, it is a matter of taste whether we regard them as lyrics or as epigrams; they are lyrical in that they express personal emotion, but their extreme brevity and lack of songquality associate them with the epigrams.

The animation, human interest, and keen sense of observation displayed in some of Herrick's greater lyrics indicate that, had he cared, he

might have won success as a narrative poet; but he chose otherwise, and among the Hesperides he has included nothing in the nature of pure narrative work. In preferring the lyric to the merely descriptive poem, he certainly showed his wisdom; for mere description, without the thrill of lyric emotion, only too often leaves us cold. At the same time, there is in his collection of secular verse a small group of poems mainly descriptive in character: these are his fairy-poems, and to these our attention must now be turned.

There is no absolute certainty as to the period at which Herrick's three chief fairy-poemsThe Fairy Fairy Temple or Oberon's Chapel, Oberon's Feast, and Oberon's Palace were written, but the probability is that they belong to the years which preceded his settlement at Dean Prior. An earlier and briefer version of the Feast was published in 1635, in a little volume of fairy-poems, entitled "A Description of the King and Queen of Fairies, Their habit, fare, their abode, pomp and state," and would thus seem to have been the first of Herrick's poems to pass through the printer's hands. This little book of twelve pages also contained a poem entitled "A Description of the King of Fairies' Clothes, brought to him on New-Year's day in the morning, 1626 [N.S. 1627]," by that Cambridgeshire knight, Sir