Robert
Herrick

POETRY

Nearly all of the poets of the time. were adherents of the king, and their poetry, chiefly lyrical, was upon light subjects and of little permanent value. Robert Herrick, a clergyman of the Church of England, was chief of the Cavalier poets and some of his thirteen hundred poems are worthy of remembrance. He was evidently a man who made no serious attempts to follow out the precepts of his high calling and much that the festive clergyman wrote is not suitable for publication. The exquisite melody of some of his lines and the beauty and picturesqueness of his diction may be seen in the playful fancy of Cherry Ripe, and kindred poems and again in To Daffodils and To Blossoms, where there is mingled a delicate touch of pathos.

Cherry Ripe

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,

Where my Julia's lips do smile -
There's the land, or cherry-isle;
Whose plantations fully shew
All the year where cherries grow.

To Daffodils

Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon;
Stay, Stay,

Until the hasting day
Has run

But to the even-song;
And having prayed together, we
Will go with you along!

We have short time to stay as you:
We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything;
We die,

As your hours do; and dry
Away

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning-dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

to all the others we have mentioned. Such space is given. In Part Nine, page 142, is a biographical sketch; in Part Ten, on page 215, is his sonnet To Cromwell; on page 189, On His Own Blindness; and on page 120, Part Nine, his elegy on Lycidas. In Part Eight, page 217, L'Allegro is printed, and on page 225, Il Penseroso.

These are all lyrics and do not show the full maturity of Milton's power as it is manifested in the sublime epic, Paradise Lost. The subject of this is the greatest that man can conceive, for its theme is the Fall of Man and the Redemption through Christ. No outline can give any idea of the grandeur of Milton's treatment or the mighty force of his stately lines.

Paradise Lost

The epic opens with the council of Satan and his fallen angels who decide to oppose God's plan to create an earth and people it with sinless beings. After much debate it is agreed that Satan shall undertake the journey to Earth and destroy the innocence of our first parents. He finds the gates of Hell guarded by Sin and Death, and on his journey meets the Angel of the Sun of whom he inquires his way, and finally descends upon the Earth disguised as the Angel of Light. Satan finds the Garden of Eden and sees the beautiful picture of innocence and happiness which Adam and Eve present. In trying to tempt Eve in a dream, Satan is arrested by the angels guarding Paradise but is allowed to

To Blossoms

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
Why do you fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,

But you may stay yet here awhile,
To blush and gently smile,
And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half's delight,
And so to bid good-night?
'Twas pity nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne'er so brave;
And after they have shewn their pride,
Like you awhile, they glide

John Milton

Into the grave.

John Milton, who embodies all that is highest and best in Puritan poetry, lived and worked through the whole period under discussion. To him belongs far more space than