Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

To Meadows

YE have been fresh and green,

Ye have been fill’d with flowers;

And ye the walks have been

Where maids have spent their hours.

You have beheld how they

With wicker arks did come,

To kiss and bear away

The richer cowslips home.

You’ve heard them sweetly sing,

And seen them in a round;

Each virgin, like a spring,

With honeysuckles crown’d.

But now, we see none here,

Whose silvery feet did tread,

And with dishevell’d hair

Adorn’d this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent

Your stock, and needy grown,

You’re left here to lament

Your poor estates alone.