No More Learning

Sweet Bridget blush'd, and therewithal
Fresh blossoms from her cheeks did fall.
I thought at first 'twas but a dream,
Till after I had handled them
And smelt them, then they smelt to me
As blossoms of the almond tree.


565. UPON LOVE.

I played with Love, as with the fire
The wanton Satyr did;
Nor did I know, or could descry
What under there was hid.

That Satyr he but burnt his lips;
But mine's the greater smart,
For kissing Love's dissembling chips
The fire scorch'd my heart.

_The wanton Satyr_, see Note.


566. UPON A COMELY AND CURIOUS MAID.

If men can say that beauty dies,
Marbles will swear that here it lies.
If, reader, then thou canst forbear
In public loss to shed a tear,
The dew of grief upon this stone
Will tell thee pity thou hast none.


567. UPON THE LOSS OF HIS FINGER.

One of the five straight branches of my hand
Is lop'd already, and the rest but stand
Expecting when to fall, which soon will be;
First dies the leaf, the bough next, next the tree.


568. UPON IRENE.

Angry if Irene be
But a minute's life with me:
Such a fire I espy
Walking in and out her eye,
As at once I freeze and fry.


569. UPON ELECTRA'S TEARS.

Upon her cheeks she wept, and from those showers
Sprang up a sweet nativity of flowers.




NOTES.




NOTES.




2. _Whither, mad maiden_, etc. From Martial, I. iv. 11, 12:--

Aetherias, lascive, cupis volitare per auras:
I, fuge; sed poteras tutior esse domi.

_But for the Court. _ Cp. Martial, I. iv. 3, 4.

4. _While Brutus standeth by. _ "Brutus and Cato are commonplaces of
examples of severe virtue": Grosart. But Herrick is translating. This is
from Martial, XI. xvi. 9, 10:--

Erubuit posuitque meum Lucretia librum,
Sed coram Bruto; Brute, recede, leget.

8. _When he would have his verses read. _ The thought throughout this
poem is taken from Martial, X. xix. , beginning:--

Nec doctum satis et parum severum,
Sed non rusticulum nimis libellum
Facundo mea Plinio, Thalia,
I perfer:

where the address to Thalia perhaps explains Herrick's "do not _thou_
rehearse". The important lines are:--

Sed ne tempore non tuo disertam
Pulses ebria januam, videto.
. . . . . . . . .
Seras tutior ibis ad lucernas.
Haec hora est tua, cum furit Lyaeus,
Cum regnat rosa, cum madent capilli:
Tunc me vel rigidi legant Catones.

_When laurel spirts i' th' fire. _ Burning bay leaves was a Christmas
observance. Herrick sings:--

"Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds":

where compare Tibull. II. v. 81-84. It was also used by maids as a love
omen.

_Thyrse . . . sacred Orgies. _ Herrick's glosses show that the passage he
had in mind was Catullus, lxiv. 256-269:--

Harum pars tecta quatiebant cuspide thyrsos
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Pars obscura cavis celebrabant orgia cistis,
Orgia, quae frustra cupiunt audire profani.

10. _No man at one time can be wise and love. _ Amare et sapere vix deo
conceditur. (Publius Syrus. ) The quotation is found in both Burton and
Montaigne.

12. _Who fears to ask_, etc. From Seneca, _Hippol. _ 594-95. Qui timide
rogat . . . docet negare.

15. _Goddess Isis . . . with her scent. _ Cp. Plutarch, _De Iside et
Osiride_, 15.

17. _He acts the crime. _ Seneca: Nil interest faveas sceleri an illud
facias.

18. _Two things odious. _ From Ecclus. xxv. 2.

31. _A Sister . . . about I'll lead. _ "Have we not power to lead about a
sister, a wife? " 1 Cor. ix. 5.

35. _Mercy and Truth live with thee. _ 2 Sam. xv. 20.

38. _To please those babies in your eyes. _ The phrase "babies [_i. e. _,
dolls] in the eyes" is probably only a translation of its metaphor,
involved in the use of the Latin _pupilla_ (a little girl), or "pupil,"
for the central spot of the eye. The metaphor doubtless arose from the
small reflections of the inlooker, which appear in the eyes of the
person gazed at; but we meet with it both intensified, as in the phrase
"to look babies in the eyes" (= to peer amorously), and with its origin
disregarded, as in Herrick, where the "babies" are the pupils, and have
an existence independent of any inlooker.

_Small griefs find tongue. _ Seneca, _Hippol. _ 608:

Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.

_Full casks. _ So G. Herbert, _Jacula Prudentum_ (1640): Empty vessels
sound most.

48. _Thus woe succeeds a woe as wave a wave. _ Horace, Ep. II. ii. 176:
Velut unda supervenit unda. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? and ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? are common
phrases in Greek tragedy.

49. _Cherry-pit. _ Printed in the 1654 edition of _Witts Recreations_,
where it appears as:--

"_Nicholas_ and _Nell_ did lately sit
Playing for sport at cherry-pit;
They both did throw, and, having thrown,
He got the pit and she the stone".

51. _Ennobled numbers. _ This poem is often quoted to prove that
Herrick's country incumbency was good for his verse; but if the
reference be only to his sacred poems or _Noble Numbers_ these would
rather prove the opposite.

52. _O earth, earth, earth, hear thou my voice. _ Jerem. xxii. 29: O
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.

56. _Love give me more such nights as these. _ A reminiscence of
Marlowe's version of Ovid, _Amor_. I. v. 26: "Jove send me more such
afternoons as this".

72. _Upon his Sister-in-law, Mistress Elizabeth Herrick_, wife to his
brother Thomas (see _infra_, 106).

74. _Love makes me write what shame forbids to speak. _ Ovid, _Phaedra to
Hippol. _: Dicere quae puduit scribere jussit amor.

_Give me a kiss. _ Herrick is here imitating the well-known lines of
Catullus to Lesbia (_Carm. _ v. ):--

Da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
Dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
Deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum,
Dein, cum millia multa fecerimus,
Conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, etc.

77. _To the King, upon his coming with his army into the west. _ Essex
had marched into the west in June, 1644, relieved Lyme, and captured
royal fortresses in Dorset and Devon. Charles followed him into "the
drooping west," and, in September, the Parliamentary infantry were
forced to surrender, while Essex himself escaped by sea. Herrick's
"white omens" were thus fulfilled.

79. _To the King and Queen upon their unhappy distances.
_ Henrietta
Maria escaped abroad with the crown jewels in 1642, returned the next
year and rejoined Charles in the west in 1644, whence she escaped again
to France. This poem has been supposed to refer to domestic dissensions;
but the "ball of strife" is surely the Civil War in general, and the
reference to the parting of 1644.

81. _The Cheat of Cupid. _ Herrick is here translating "Anacreon," 31
[3]:--

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ' ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ' ? ? ? ? ' ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , 5
? ? ? ' ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ' ? ? ? ? ? .
? ? ? , ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .
? ? ' ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? 10
? ? ? ? ? ?