THE MEDDOW VERSE, OR ANNIVERSARY, TO
MISTRIS BRIDGET LOWMAN.-

COME with the spring-time forth, fair maid, and be This year again the medow's deity.

Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set

Upon your head this flowry coronet,

To make this neat distinction from the rest;
You are the prime and princesse of the feast;
To which with silver feet lead you the way,
While sweet-breath nimphs attend on you this

day.

This is your houre; and best you may command, Since you are lady of this fairie land.

Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all.

THE PARTING VERSE, THE FEAST THERE ENDED.

LоTH to depart, but yet at last each one
Back must now go to's habitation:

Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever,
Whether, or no, that we shall meet here ever.
As for my self, since time a thousand cares
And griefs hath fil'de upon my silver hairs,
'Tis to be doubted whether I next yeer,
Or no, shall give ye a re-meeting here.

If die I must, then my last vow shall be,
You'l with a tear or two remember me,
Your sometime poet; but if fates do give
Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live,
Oft as your field shall her old age renew,
Herrick shall make the meddow-verse for you.

UPON JUDITH. EPIG.

JUDITH has cast her old-skin and got new,
And walks fresh varnisht to the publick view.
Foule Judith was, and foule she will be known,
For all this fair transfiguration.

LONG AND LAZIE.

THAT was the proverb. Let my mistresse be
Lasie to others, but be long to me.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, PHILLIP, EARLE OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERIE.

How dull and dead are books that cannot show
A Prince of Pembroke, and that Pembroke, you!
You, who are high born, and a lord no lesse
Free by your fate then fortunes mightinesse,

Who hug our poems, honour'd sir, and then
The paper gild and laureat the pen.

Nor suffer you the poets to sit cold,

But warm their wits, and turn their lines to gold.
Others there be, who righteously will swear
Those smooth-pac't numbers amble every where,
And these brave measures go a stately trot;
Love those, like these; regard, reward them not.
But you, my lord, are one whose hand along
Goes with your mouth, or do's outrun your

tongue;

Paying before you praise, and cockring wit,
Give both the gold and garland unto it.

UPON RALPH. EPIG.

CURSE not the mice, no grist of thine they eat: But curse thy children, they consume thy wheat.

AN HYMNE TO JUNO.

STATELY goddesse, do thou please,
Who art chief at marriages,

But to dresse the bridall-bed,

When

my love and I shall wed: And a peacock proud shall be Offered up by us to thee.

UPON MEASE. EPIG.

MEASE brags of pullets which he eats: but Mease Ne'r yet set tooth in stump or rump of these.

UPON SAPHO, SWEETLY PLAYING AND SWEETLY

SINGING.

WHEN thou do'st play and sweetly sing,
Whether it be the voice or string,
Or both of them, that do agree

Thus to en-trance and ravish me:
This, this I know, I'm oft struck mute,
And dye away upon thy lute.

UPON PASKE, A DRAPER.

PASKE, though his debt be due upon the day,
Demands no money by a craving way;
For why, sayes he, all debts and their arreares
Have reference to the shoulders, not the eares.

CHOP-CHERRY.

THOU gav'st me leave to kisse,
Thou gav'st me leave to wooe;
Thou mad'st me thinke by this
And that, thou lov'dst me too.

But I shall ne'r forget

How for to make thee merry;

Thou mad'st me chop, but yet
Another snapt the cherry.

TO THE MOST LEARNED, WISE, AND ARCH-ANTIQUARY, M. JOHN SELDEN.

I WHO have favour'd many, come to be
Grac't now at last, or glorifi'd, by thee.
Loe, I, the lyrick prophet, who have set
On many a head the delphick coronet,
Come unto thee for laurell, having spent
My wreaths on those who little gave or lent.
Give me the Daphne, that the world may know it,
Whom they neglected thou hast crown'd a poet.
A city here of heroes I have made,

Upon the rock whose firm foundation laid

Shall never shrink, where, making thine abode, Live thou a Selden, that's a demi-god.

UPON HIMSELF.

THOU shalt not all die; for while love's fire
shines

Upon his altar, men shall read thy lines;
And learn'd musicians shall to honour Herrick's
Fame and his name, both set and sing his lyricks.