Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/296

ROBERT HERRICK 254.

SK me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year? Ask me why I send to you This primrose, thus bepearl'd with dew? I will whisper to your ears: The sweets of love are mix'd with tears.

Ask me why this flower does show So yellow-green, and sickly too? Ask me why the stalk is weak And bending (yet it doth not break)? I will answer:—These discover What fainting hopes are in a lover.



255.

HE Rose was sick and smiling died; And, being to be sanctified, About the bed there sighing stood The sweet and flowery sisterhood: Some hung the head, while some did bring, To wash her, water from the spring; Some laid her forth, while others wept, But all a solemn fast there kept: The holy sisters, some among, The sacred dirge and trental sung. But ah! what sweets smelt everywhere, As Heaven had spent all perfumes there. At last, when prayers for the dead And rites were all accomplishèd, They, weeping, spread a lawny loom, And closed her up as in a tomb.

