Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/310

 ROBERT HERRICK

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.

263 The Funeral Rites of the Rose

^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 accomplished, They, weeping, spread a lawny loom, And closed her up as in a tomb.

264 Cherry-Ri-pe /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 263 trental] services for the dead, of thirty masses.

�� �