I think, they've made his grave
I' th' bed of strawberries.

"I'll seek him there: I know ere this
The cold, cold earth doth shake him;
But I will go, or send a kiss
By you, sir, to awake him.

"Pray hurt him not; though he be dead
He knows well who do love him,
And who with green turfs rear his head,
And who do rudely move him.

"He's soft and tender, pray take heed,
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home; but 'tis decreed
That I shall never find him."

* * * * *

"I dare not ask a kiss;
I dare not beg a smile;
Lest having that or this,
I might grow proud the while.

"No, no--the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee."

* * * * *

"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."

But Herrick's charm is everywhere--except in the epigrams. It is very rare
to find one of the hundreds of little poems which form his book destitute
of the peculiar touch of phrasing, the eternising influence of style, which
characterises the poetry of this particular period so remarkably. The
subject may be the merest trifle, the thought a hackneyed or insignificant
one. But the amber to enshrine the fly is always there in larger or
smaller, in clearer or more clouded, shape. There has often been a certain
contempt (connected no doubt with certain general critical errors as they
seem to me, with which I shall deal at the end of this chapter) flavouring
critical notices of Herrick. I do not think that any one who judges poetry
as poetry, who keeps its several kinds apart and does not demand epic
graces in lyric, dramatic substance in an anthologia, could ever feel or
hint such a contempt. Whatever Herrick may have been as a man (of which we
know very little, and for which we need care less), he was a most exquisite
and complete poet in his own way, neither was that way one to be lightly
spoken of.

Indissolubly connected with Herrick in age, in character, and in the
singularly unjust criticism which has at various times been bestowed on
him, is Thomas Carew. His birth-date has been very differently given as
1587 and (that now pr