The rest of our creation

Our great Redeemer did remove

With the same shake, which at his passion
Did the earth and all things with it move.

As Samson bore the doors away,

Christ's hands, though nail'd, wrought our salvation,
And did unhinge that day.

The brightness of that day
We sullied by our foul offence:
Wherefore that robe we cast away,

Having a new at his expense,

Whose drops of blood paid the full price,
That was required to make us gay,
And fit for paradise.

Thou art a day of mirth:

And where the week-days trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth;

O let me take thee at the bound,

Leaping with thee from seven to seven,

Till that we both being toss'd from earth,
Fly hand in hand to heaven.

ROBERT HERRICK, one of the most exquisite of the early English lyrical poets, was born in Cheapside, London, in 1591. He was educated at the university of Cambridge, and having taken orders, was presented, by Charles the First, in 1629, to the vicarage of Dean Prior, in Devonshire. After residing about twenty years in this rural parish, Herrick was ejected from his living by the storms of the civil war; but whatever regret the poet may have felt on being turned adrift upon the world, he could have experienced little pain on parting with his parishioners, whom he describes as a 'wild amphibious race, almost as rude as savages, and churlish as the seas.' Herrick, at the same time, gives us a glimpse of his own character:—

Born I was to meet with age,
And to walk life's pilgrimage:
Much, I know, of time is spent;
Tell I can't what's resident.
Howsoever, cares adieu!

I'll have nought to say to you;
But I'll spend my coming hours

Drinking wine and crown'd with flowers.

So light and genial a temperament would enable the poet to ride out the storm in comparative composure.

Herrick published his Noble Numbers, or Pious Pieces, in 1647, which must have been about the time that he lost his vicarage. In the following year appeared The Hesperides, or the Works, both Humane and Divine, of Robert Herrick, Esquire. The clerical prefix to his name seems now to have been abandoned by the poet, and there are certainly many pieces in his second volume which would not become one ministering at the altar, or belonging to the sacred profession. He now took up his residence in West

minster, associated with the jovial spirits of the age, and was supported or assisted by the wealthy royalists.

After the Restoration Herrick was restored to the Devonshire vicarage. How he was received by the 'rude savages' of Dean Prior, or how he felt on quitting the gayeties of the metropolis to resume his clerical duties and seclusion, is not recorded. He was at this time about seventy years of age, and was probably tired of wine and tavern jollities. He had an unquestionable taste for the pleasures of a country life, if we may judge from his works, and the fondness with which he dwells on old English festivals and rural scenes. Though his rhymes were sometimes wild, he says his life was chaste, and he repented of his errors :—

For these my unbaptized rhymes,
Writ in my wild unhallowed times,
For every sentence, clause, and word,
That's not inlaid with thee, O Lord!
Forgive me, God, and blot each line
Out of my book that is not thine;
But if, 'mongst all thou findest one
Worthy thy benediction,

That one of all the rest shall be
The glory of my work and me.

The poet would have better evinced the sincerity and depths of his contrition by blotting out the unbaptized rhymes himself; but the vanity of the author probably triumphed over the penitence of the Christian. Gayety was Herrick's natural element. His muse was a goddess fair and free, that did not move happily in serious numbers. The time of the poet's death has not been ascertained, but he must have lived to reach a ripe old age.

The poetical works of Herrick lay neglected for many years after his death, but they have recently become popular, especially his shorter Lyrics, some of which have, within a few years, been set to music, and are now sung and quoted by all lovers of song. His verses, Cherry Ripe, and Gather the Rose-buds while ye may, possess a delicious mixture of playful fancy and natural feeling. Those To Blossoms, To Daffodils, and To Primroses, have a tinge of pathos that at once wins its way to the heart. They abound, like all Herrick's poems, in lively imagery and conceits; but the pensive moral feeling predominates, and we feel that the poet's smiles might as well be tears. Shakspeare and Jonson had scattered such delicate fancies among their plays and masques, that Herrick was not without models of the highest excellence in this species of composition. There is, however, in his songs and anacreontics, an unforced gayety and natural tenderness, which show that he wrote chiefly from the impulses of his own cheerful and happy nature. The select beauty and picturesqueness of Herrick's language, when he is in his happiest vein, is worthy of his fine conceptions; and his versification is harmony itself. His verses bound and flow like some exquisite lively melody, that echoes nature, by wood and dell, and presents new beauties at

every turn and winding. The strain is short, and sometimes fantastic, but the notes long linger in the mind, and take their place forever in the memory. One or two words, such as gather the rose-buds,' call up a summer landscape, with youth, beauty, flowers, and music. This is, and ever must be, true poetry.

We shall introduce Herrick's minor poems in the order in which they are enumerated above; and shall follow them by two that are more extended, the latter of which is one of the finest of his serious poetical performances.

CHERRY RIPE.

Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,

Full and fair ones-come and buy;
If so be you ask me where
They do grow?--I answer, There,
Where my Julia's lips do smile-
There's the land, or cherry-isle;
Whose plantations fully show
All the year where cherries grow.

GATHER THE ROSE-BUDS.

Gather the rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,

The higher he's a getting,

The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Time shall succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry ;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

TO BLOSSOMS.

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,

But you may stay yet here a while,
To blush and gently smile,

And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,

And so to bid good-night?

'Tis pity nature brought ye forth

Merely to show your worth,

And lose you quite.

No, no; this sorrow shown

By your tears shed,

Would have this lecture read

'That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceived with grief are, and with tears brought forth.'

TO CORINNA, TO GO A MAYING.

Get up, get up, for shame, the blooming morn
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

See how Aurora throws her fair
Fresh-quilted colours through the air;
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangled herb and tree.

Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east,
Above an hour since, yet you are not drest,

Nay, not so much as out of bed;

When all the birds have matins said,

And sung their thankful hymns: 'tis sin,

Nay, profanation, to keep in,

When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May.

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen

To come forth, like the spring time, fresh and green,
And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For jewels for your gown or hair;
Fear not, the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you;

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

Come and receive them while the light
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:
And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himself, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying;
Few beads are best, when once we go a Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark
How each field turns a street,1 each street a park
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,

Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this,

An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white thorn neatly interwove;

As if here were those cooler shades of love.

Can such delights be in the street,

And open fields, and we not see't?
Come, we'll abroad, and let's obey

The proclamation made for May:

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying,
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a Maying.

1 Herrick here alludes to the multitudes which were to be seen roaming in the fields on May morning; he afterward refers to the appearance of the towns and villages bedecked with evergreens.