Works

Stately goddess, do thou please,
Who are chief at marriages,
But to dress the bridal bed
When my love and I shall wed;
And a peacock proud shall be
Offered up by us to thee.

I will confess
With cheerfulness,
Love is a thing so likes me,
That let her lay
On me all day,
I'll kiss the hand that strikes me.

I will not, I,
Now blubb'ring, cry,...

Ah Ben!
Say how, or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad;...

Ah Ben!
Say how, or when
Shall we thy guests
Meet at those lyric feasts
Made at the Sun,
The Dog, the Triple Tun?
Where we such clusters had,
As made us nobly wild, not mad;...

In numbers, and but these few,
I sing thy birth, oh JESU!
Thou pretty Baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for thy princely port here,
Hadst for thy place
Of birth, a base...

In numbers, and but these few,
I sing Thy birth, O JESU!
Thou pretty baby, born here,
With sup'rabundant scorn here;
Who for Thy princely port here,
Hadst for Thy place
Of birth a base...

Dear God,
If Thy smart rod
Here did not make me sorry,
I should not be
With Thine or Thee
In Thy eternal glory.

But since
Thou didst convince
My sins by gently striking;...

Not all thy flushing suns are set,
Herrick, as yet;
Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere
Frown and look sullen ev'rywhere.
Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest
As dead within the west;...

Here we securely live, and eat
The cream of meat;
And keep eternal fires,
By which we sit, and do divine,
As wine
And rage inspires.

If full, we charm; then call upon
Anacreon...

Another
Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum, and many a pear:
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.

Wassail the trees, that they may bear
You many a plum and many a pear:
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you do give them wassailing.

The blood of Abel was a thing
Of such a rev'rend reckoning,
As that the old world thought it fit
Especially to swear by it.

Hang up hooks and shears to scare
Hence the hag that rides the mare,
Till they be all over wet
With the mire and the sweat:
This observ'd, the manes shall be
Of your horses all knot-free.

Let the superstitious wife
Near the child's heart lay a knife:
Point be up, and haft be down
(While she gossips in the town);
This, 'mongst other mystic charms,
Keeps the sleeping child from harms.

The shame of man's face is no more
Than prayers repell'd, says Cassiodore.

That there's a God we all do know,
But what God is we cannot show.

Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all. Amen.

Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand;
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat and on us all. Amen.

1. Hence, hence profane, and none appear
With anything unhallowed here;
No jot of leaven must be found
Conceal'd in this most holy ground.

2. What is corrupt, or sour'd with sin,...

God's said to leave this place, and for to come
Nearer to that place than to other some,
Of local motion, in no least respect,
But only by impression of effect.