| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The White Island | | By Robert Herrick (1591–1674) |
| | | IN this world, the Isle of Dreams, | |
| While we sit by sorrow’s streams, | |
| Tears and terror are our themes | |
| Reciting: | |
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| But when once from hence we fly, | 5 |
| More and more approaching nigh | |
| Unto young Eternity | |
| Uniting: | |
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| In that whiter island, where | |
| Things are evermore sincere; | 10 |
| Candour here, and lustre there | |
| Delighting: | |
| |
| —There no monstrous fancies shall | |
| Out of Hell an horror call, | |
| To create (or cause at all) | 15 |
| Affrighting. | |
| |
| There in calm and cooling sleep | |
| We our eyes shall never steep; | |
| But eternal watch shall keep | |
| Attending | 20 |
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| Pleasures such as shall pursue | |
| Me immortalised, and you; | |
| And fresh joys, as never too | |
| Have ending. | | | | |
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