Hesperides, by Robert Herrick

Blanch swears her husband’s lovely; when a scald

Has blear’d his eyes: besides, his head is bald

Next, his wild ears, like leathern wings full spread,

Flutter to fly, and bear away his head.

Cuffe comes to church much: but he keeps his bed

Those Sundays only whenas briefs are read.

This makes Cuffe dull; and troubles him the most,

Because he cannot sleep i’ th’ church free cost.

Fone says, those mighty whiskers he does wear

Are twigs of birch, and willow, growing there:

If so, we’ll think too, when he does condemn

Boys to the lash, that he does whip with them.

Scobble for whoredom whips his wife; and cries

He’ll slit her nose; but blubb’ring, she replies,

Good sir, make no more cuts i’ th’ outward skin,

One slit’s enough to let adultry in.

Glasco had none, but now some teeth has got;

Which though they fur, will neither ache or rot.

Six teeth he has, whereof twice two are known

Made of a haft that was a mutton bone.

Which not for use, but merely for the sight,

He wears all day, and draws those teeth at night.

For second course, last night, a custard came

To th’ board, so hot as none could touch the same:

Furze three or four times with his cheeks did blow

Upon the custard, and thus cooled so;

It seem’d by this time to admit the touch,

But none could eat it, ‘cause it stunk so much.

Gryll eats, but ne’er says grace; to speak the truth,

Gryll either keeps his breath to cool his broth,

Or else, because Gryll’s roast does burn his spit,

Gryll will not therefore say a grace for it.

Strut, once a foreman of a shop we knew;

But turn’d a ladies’ usher now, ’tis true:

Tell me, has Strut got e’re a title more?

No; he’s but foreman, as he was before.

First, Jolly’s wife is lame; then next loose-hipp’d:

Squint-ey’d, hook-nos’d; and lastly, kidney-lipp’d.

Pagget, a schoolboy, got a sword, and then

He vow’d destruction both to birch and men:

Who would not think this younker fierce to fight?

Yet coming home, but somewhat late (last night),

Untruss, his master bade him; and that word

Made him take up his shirt, lay down his sword.

Prig now drinks water, who before drank beer;

What’s now the cause? we know the case is clear;

Look in Prig’s purse, the chev’ril there tells you

Prig money wants, either to buy or brew.

Batt he gets children, not for love to rear ’em;

But out of hope his wife might die to bear ’em.

Much-more provides and hoards up like an ant,

Yet Much-more still complains he is in want.

Let Much-more justly pay his tithes; then try

How both his meal and oil will multiply.

Luggs, by the condemnation of the Bench,

Was lately whipt for lying with a wench.

Thus pains and pleasures turn by turn succeed:

He smarts at last who does not first take heed.

Gubbs calls his children kitlings: and would bound,

Some say, for joy, to see those kitlings drown’d.

Money thou ow’st me; prethee fix a day

For payment promis’d, though thou never pay:

Let it be Dooms-day; nay, take longer scope;

Pay when th’art honest; let me have some hope.

Of flanks and chines of beef doth Gorrell boast

He has at home; but who tastes boil’d or roast?

Look in his brine-tub, and you shall find there

Two stiff blue pigs’-feet and a sow’s cleft ear.

Wither’d with years, and bed-rid Mumma lies;

Dry-roasted all, but raw yet in her eyes.

Bar close as you can, and bolt fast too your door,

To keep out the letcher, and keep in the whore;

Yet quickly you’ll see by the turn of a pin,

The whore to come out, or the letcher come in.

Sudds launders bands in piss, and starches them

Both with her husband’s and her own tough fleam.

Guess cuts his shoes, and limping, goes about

To have men think he’s troubled with the gout;

But ’tis no gout, believe it, but hard beer,

Whose acrimonious humour bites him here.

Crooked you are, but that dislikes not me:

So you be straight where virgins straight should be.

Groynes, for his fleshly burglary of late,

Stood in the holy forum candidate;

The word is Roman; but in English known:

Penance, and standing so, are both but one.

To paint the fiend, Pink would the devil see;

And so he may, if he’ll be rul’d by me;

Let but Pink’s face i’ th’ looking-glass be shown,

And Pink may paint the devil’s by his own.

To cleanse his eyes, Tom Brock makes much ado,

But not his mouth, the fouler of the two.

A clammy rheum makes loathsome both his eyes:

His mouth, worse furr’d with oaths and blasphemies.

Y’ave laughed enough, sweet, vary now your text!

And laugh no more; or laugh, and lie down next.

Shark, when he goes to any public feast,

Eats to one’s thinking, of all there, the least.

What saves the master of the house thereby

When if the servants search, they may descry

In his wide codpiece, dinner being done,

Two napkins cramm’d up, and a silver spoon?

Bungy does fast; looks pale; puts sackcloth on;

Not out of conscience, or religion:

Or that this younker keeps so strict a Lent,

Fearing to break the king’s commandement:

But being poor, and knowing flesh is dear,

He keeps not one, but many Lents i’ th’ year.

Sneape has a face so brittle, that it breaks

Forth into blushes whensoe’er he speaks.

Leech boasts, he has a pill, that can alone

With speed give sick men their salvation:

’Tis strange, his father long time has been ill,

And credits physic, yet not trusts his pill:

And why? he knows he must of cure despair,

Who makes the sly physician his heir.

You say, you love me! that I thus must prove:

It that you lie, then I will swear you love.

An old, old widow Greedy needs would wed,

Not for affection to her or her bed;

But in regard, ’twas often said, this old

Woman would bring him more than could be told.

He took her; now the jest in this appears,

So old she was, that none could tell her years.

That was the proverb. Let my mistress be

Lazy to others, but be long to me.

Curse not the mice, no grist of thine they eat;

But curse thy children, they consume thy wheat.

Mease brags of pullets which he eats: but Mease

Ne’er yet set tooth in stump or rump of these.

Paske, though his debt be due upon the day

Demands no money by a craving way;

For why, says he, all debts and their arrears

Have reference to the shoulders, not the ears.

Prigg, when he comes to houses, oft doth use,

Rather than fail, to steal from thence old shoes:

Sound or unsound be they, or rent or whole,

Prigg bears away the body and the sole.

Moon is a usurer, whose gain,

Seldom or never knows a wain,

Only Moon’s conscience, we confess,

That ebbs from pity less and less.

Shift now has cast his clothes: got all things new;

Save but his hat, and that he cannot mew.

If wounds in clothes Cuts calls his rags, ’tis clear

His linings are the matter running there.

When others gain much by the present cast,

The cobblers’ getting time is at the last.

Doll, she so soon began the wanton trade,

She ne’er remembers that she was a maid.

Skrew lives by shifts; yet swears by no small oaths

For all his shifts he cannot shift his clothes.

Linnet plays rarely on the lute, we know;

And sweetly sings, but yet his breath says no.

Glass, out of deep, and out of desp’rate want,

Turn’d from a Papist here a Predicant.

A vicarage at last Tom Glass got here,

Just upon five and thirty pounds a year.

Add to that thirty-five but five pounds more,

He’ll turn a Papist, ranker than before.

Eeles winds and turns, and cheats and steals; yet Eeles

Driving these sharking trades, is out at heels.

Rasp plays at nine-holes; and ’tis known he gets

Many a tester by his game and bets:

But of his gettings there’s but little sign;

When one hole wastes more than he gets by nine.

Center is known weak-sighted, and he sells

To others store of helpful spectacles.

Why wears he none? Because we may suppose,

Where leaven wants, there level lies the nose.

Skinns, he dined well today: how do you think?

His nails they were his meat, his rheum the drink.

Pievish doth boast that he’s the very first

Of English poets, and ’tis thought the worst.

Jolly and Jilly bite and scratch all day,

But yet get children (as the neighbours say).

The reason is: though all the day they fight,

They cling and close some minutes of the night.

Now Patrick with his footmanship has done,

His eyes and ears strive which should fastest run.

Of four teeth only Bridget was possest;

Two she spat out, a cough forced out the rest.

Why walks Nick Flimsey like a malcontent!

Is it because his money all is spent?

No, but because the dingthrift now is poor,

And knows not where i’ th’ world to borrow more.

Last night thou didst invite me home to eat;

And showed me there much plate, but little meat.

Prithee, when next thou do’st invite, bar state,

And give me meat, or give me else thy plate.

Roots had no money; yet he went o’ the score,

For a wrought purse; can any tell wherefore?

Say, what should Roots do with a purse in print,

That had not gold nor silver to put in’t?

Craw cracks in sirrop; and does stinking say,

Who can hold that, my friends, that will away?

Who to the north, or south, doth set

His bed, male children shall beget.

Putrefaction is the end

Of all that nature doth intend.

Were there not a matter known,

There would be no passion.

Since Jack and Jill both wicked be;

It seems a wonder unto me,

That they, no better do agree.

Old Parson Beanes hunts six days of the week,

And on the seventh, he has his notes to seek.

Six days he hollows so much breath away,

That on the seventh, he can nor preach or pray.

This lady’s short, that mistress she is tall;

But long or short, I’m well content with all.

Rook he sells feathers, yet he still doth cry

Fie on this pride, this female vanity.

Thus, though the Rook does rail against the sin,

He loves the gain that vanity brings in.

Spunge makes his boasts that he’s the only man

Can hold of beer and ale an ocean;

Is this his glory? then his triumph’s poor;

I know the tun of Heidleberg holds more.

You say you’re young; but when your teeth are told

To be but three, black-ey’d, we’ll think you old.

Huncks has no money, he does swear or say,

About him, when the tavern’s shot’s to pay.

If he has none in ‘s pockets, trust me, Huncks

Has none at home in coffers, desks, or trunks.

Feacie, some say, doth wash her clothes i’ th’ lie

That sharply trickles from her either eye.

The laundresses, they envy her good-luck,

Who can with so small charges drive the buck.

What needs she fire and ashes to consume,

Who can scour linens with her own salt rheum?

Skurf by his nine-bones swears, and well he may:

All know a fellon eat the tenth away.

When Jill complains to Jack for want of meat,

Jack kisses Jill and bids her freely eat:

Jill says, Of what? says Jack, On that sweet kiss,

Which full of nectar and ambrosia is,

The food of poets. So I thought, says Jill,

That makes them look so lank, so ghost-like still.

Let poets feed on air, or what they will;

Let me feed full, till that I fart, says Jill.

Parrat protests ’tis he, and only he

Can teach a man the art of memory:

Believe him not; for he forgot it quite,

Being drunk, who ’twas that can’d his ribs last night.

Kissing and bussing differ both in this;

We buss our wantons, but our wives we kiss.

Maggot frequents those houses of good-cheer,

Talks most, eats most, of all the feeders there.

He raves through lean, he rages through the fat,

(What gets the master of the meal by that?)

He who with talking can devour so much,

How would he eat, were not his hindrance such?

Joan would go tell her hairs; and well she might,

Having but seven in all: three black, four white.

Letcher was carted first about the streets,

For false position in his neighbour’s sheets:

Next, hanged for thieving: now the people say,

His carting was the prologue to this play.

Dundrige his issue hath; but is not styl’d,

For all his issue, father of one child.

Once on a Lord Mayor’s Day, in Cheapside, when

Skulls could not well pass through that scum of men,

For quick despatch Skulls made no longer stay

Than but to breathe, and everyone gave way;

For, as he breathed, the people swore from thence

A fart flew out, or a sir-reverence.

Broomsted a lameness got by cold and beer:

And to the bath went, to be cured there:

His feet were helped, and left his crutch behind;

But home returned, as he went forth, half blind.

With paste of almonds, Syb her hands doth scour;

Then gives it to the children to devour.

In cream she bathes her thighs, more soft than silk;

Then to the poor she freely gives the milk.

The eggs of pheasants wry-nosed Tooly sells,

But ne’er so much as licks the speckled shells:

Only, if one prove addled, that he eats

With superstition, as the cream of meats.

The cock and hen he feeds; but not a bone

He ever picked, as yet, of anyone.

I have seen many maidens to have hair,

Both for their comely need and some to spare;

But Blanch has not so much upon her head

As to bind up her chaps when she is dead.

Umber was painting of a lion fierce,

And, working it, by chance from Umber’s erse

Flew out a crack, so mighty, that the fart,

As Umber states, did make his lion start.

Urles had the gout so, that he could not stand;

Then from his feet it shifted to his hand:

When ’twas in’s feet, his charity was small;

Now ’tis in’s hand, he gives no alms at all.

Franck ne’er wore silk she swears; but I reply,

She now wears silk to hide her blood-shot eye.

You say you’ll kiss me, and I thank you for it;

But stinking breath, I do as hell abhor it.

What is the reason Coone so dully smells?

His nose is over-cool’d with icicles.

Of pushes Spalt has such a knotty race,

He needs a tucker for to burl his face.

Horne sells to others teeth; but has not one

To grace his own gums, or of box, or bone.

Fie, quoth my lady, what a stink is here?

When ’twas her breath that was the carrionere.

Cock calls his wife his Hen: when Cock goes to’t,

Cock treads his Hen, but treads her underfoot.

What made that mirth last night? the neighbours say,

That Bran the baker did his breech beray:

I rather think, though they may speak the worst,

’Twas to his batch, but leaven laid there first.

Snare, ten i’ th’ hundred calls his wife; and why?

She brings in much by carnal usury.

He by extortion brings in three times more:

Say, who’s the worst, th’ exactor or the whore?

Grudgings turns bread to stones, when to the poor

He gives an alms, and chides them from his door.

Since Gander did his pretty youngling wed,

Gander, they say, doth each night piss a-bed:

What is the cause? Why, Gander will reply,

No goose lays good eggs that is trodden dry.

Lungs, as some say, ne’er sets him down to eat

But that his breath does fly-blow all the meat.

Cob clouts his shoes, and, as the story tells,

His thumb nails par’d afford him sparrables.

Skoles stinks so deadly, that his breeches loath

His dampish buttocks furthermore to clothe;

Cloy’d they are up with arse; but hope, one blast

Will whirl about, and blow them thence at last.

Jone is a wench that’s painted;

Jone is a girl that’s tainted;

Yet Jone she goes

Like one of those

Whom purity had sainted.

Jane is a girl that’s pretty;

Jane is a wench that’s witty;

Yet who would think,

Her breath does stink,

As so it doth? that’s pity.

Is Zelot pure? he is: yet! see he wears

The sign of circumcision in his ears.

For ropes of pearl, first Madam Ursly shows

A chain of corns picked from her ears and toes;

Then, next, to match Tradescant’s curious shells,

Nails from her fingers mew’d she shows: what else?

Why then, forsooth, a carcanet is shown

Of teeth, as deaf as nuts, and all her own.

Trigg having turn’d his suit, he struts in state,

And tells the world he’s now regenerate.

How could Luke Smeaton wear a shoe, or boot,

Who two-and-thirty corns had on a foot.

To loose the button is no less,

Than to cast off all bashfulness.

Franck would go scour her teeth; and setting to ’t

Twice two fell out, all rotten at the root.

Paul’s hands do give; what give they, bread or meat,

Or money? no, but only dew and sweat.

As stones and salt gloves use to give, even so

Paul’s hands do give, nought else for ought we know.

Sibb, when she saw her face how hard it was,

For anger spat on thee, her looking-glass:

But weep not, crystal; for the same was meant

Not unto thee, but that thou didst present.

Slouch he packs up, and goes to several fairs,

And weekly markets for to sell his wares:

Meantime that he from place to place does roam,

His wife her own ware sells as fast at home.

Bice laughs, when no man speaks; and doth protest.

It is his own breech there that breaks the jest.

Tom shifts the trenchers; yet he never can

Endure that lukewarm name of serving-man:

Serve or not serve, let Tom do what he can,

He is a serving, who’s a trencher-man.

Comely acts well; and when he speaks his part,

He doth it with the sweetest tones of art:

But when he sings a psalm, there’s none can be

More curs’d for singing out of tune than he.

E’en all religious courses to be rich

Hath been rehers’d by Joel Michelditch:

But now perceiving that it still does please

The sterner fates, to cross his purposes;

He tacks about, and now he doth profess

Rich he will be by all unrighteousness;

Thus if our ship fails of her anchor hold

We’ll love the divel, so he lands the gold.

Old Widow Prouse, to do her neighbours evil,

Would give, some say, her soul unto the devil.

Well, when she’s kill’d that pig, goose, cock, or hen,

What would she give to get that soul again?

Thou writes in prose how sweet all virgins be;

But there’s not one, doth praise the smell of thee.

Seal’d up with night-gum, Loach each morning lies,

Till his wife licking, so unglues his eyes.

No question then, but such a lick is sweet,

When a warm tongue does with such ambers meet.

Wherever Nodes does in the summer come,

He prays his harvest may be well brought home.

What store of corn has careful Nodes, think you,

Whose field his foot is, and whose barn his shoe?

Tap, better known than trusted, as we hear,

Sold his old mother’s spectacles for beer:

And not unlikely; rather too than fail,

He’ll sell her eyes, and nose, for beer and ale.

Give me a reason why men call

Punchin a dry plant-animal.

Because as plants by water grow,

Punchin by beer and ale spreads so.

Tom Blinks his nose is full of weals, and these

Tom calls not pimples, but pimpleides;

Sometimes, in mirth, he says each whelk’s a spark,

When drunk with beer, to light him home i’ th’ dark.

Peapes he does strut, and pick his teeth, as if

His jaws had tir’d on some large chine of beef.

But nothing so: the dinner Adam had,

Was cheese full ripe with tears, with bread as sad.

Hanch, since he lately did inter his wife,

He weeps and sighs, as weary of his life.

Say, is’t for real grief he mourns? not so;

Tears have their springs from joy, as well as woe.

Long locks of late our zealot Peason wears,

Not for to hide his high and mighty ears;

No, but because he would not have it seen

That stubble stands where once large ears have been.

Reape’s eyes so raw are that, it seems, the flies

Mistake the flesh, and fly-blow both his eyes;

So that an angler, for a day’s expense,

May bait his hook with maggots taken thence.

Teage has told lies so long that when Teage tells

Truth, yet Teage’s truths are untruths, nothing else.

Truggin a footman was; but now, grown lame,

Truggin now lives but to belie his name.

Spenke has a strong breath, yet short prayers saith;

Not out of want of breath, but want of faith.

Lulls swears he is all heart; but you’ll suppose

By his proboscis that he is all nose.

Bad are all surfeits; but physicians call

That surfeit took by bread the worst of all.

Nis he makes verses; but the lines he writes

Serve but for matter to make paper kites.

Prickles is waspish, and puts forth his sting

For bread, drink, butter, cheese; for everything

That Prickles buys puts Prickles out of frame;

How well his nature’s fitted to his name!

Blisse, last night drunk, did kiss his mother’s knee;

Where will he kiss, next drunk, conjecture ye.

Burr is a smell-feast, and a man alone,

That, where meat is, will be a hanger on.

Meg yesterday was troubled with a pose,

Which, this night harden’d, sodders up her nose.

Ralph pares his nails, his warts, his corns, and Ralph

In sev’rall tills and boxes, keeps ’em safe;

Instead of hartshorn, if he speaks the troth,

To make a lusty-jelly for his broth.

Vinegar is no other, I define,

Than the dead corps, or carcase of the wine.

Mudge every morning to the postern comes,

His teeth all out, to rinse and wash his gums.

Lupes for the outside of his suit has paid;

But for his heart, he cannot have it made;

The reason is, his credit cannot get

The inward garbage for his clothes as yet.

What are our patches, tatters, rags, and rents,

But the base dregs and lees of vestiments?

For thirty years Tubbs has been proud and poor;

’Tis now his habit, which he can’t give o’er.

Spokes, when he sees a roasted pig, he swears

Nothing he loves on’t but the chaps and ears:

But carve to him the fat flanks, and he shall

Rid these, and those, and part by part eat all.

We read how Faunus, he the shepherds’ god,

His wife to death whipped with a myrtle rod.

The rod, perhaps, was better’d by the name;

But had it been of birch, the death’s the same.

Up with the quintell, that the rout,

May fart for joy, as well as shout:

Either’s welcome, stink or civit,

If we take it, as they give it.

Brown bread Tom Penny eats, and must of right,

Because his stock will not hold out for white.

Buggins is drunk all night, all day he sleeps;

This is the level-coil that Buggins keeps.

Boreman takes toll, cheats, natters, lies; yet Boreman,

For all the devil helps, will be a poor man.

Unto Pastillus rank Gorgonius came

To have a tooth twitched out of’s native frame;

Drawn was his tooth, but stank so, that some say,

The barber stopped his nose, and ran away.

Grubs loves his wife and children, while that they

Can live by love, or else grow fat by play;

But when they call or cry on Grubs for meat,

Instead of bread Grubs gives them stones to eat.

He raves, he rends, and while he thus doth tear,

His wife and children fast to death for fear.

No question but Doll’s cheeks would soon roast dry,

Were they not basted by her either eye.

Hog has a place i’ the’ kitchen, and his share,

The flimsy livers and blue gizzards are.

Science puffs up, says Gut, when either pease

Make him thus swell, or windy cabbages.

Spur jingles now, and swears by no mean oaths,

He’s double honour’d, since he’s got gay clothes:

Most like his suit, and all commend the trim;

And thus they praise the sumpter, but not him:

As to the goddess, people did confer

Worship, and not to th’ ass that carried her.

Rump is a turn-broach, yet he seldom can

Steal a swoln sop out of a dripping-pan.

Old Widow Shopter, whensoe’er she cries,

Lets drip a certain gravy from her eyes.

If felt and heard, unseen, thou dost me please;

If seen, thou lik’st me, Deb, in none of these.

One silver spoon shines in the house of Croot;

Who cannot buy or steal a second to’t.

Flood, if he has for him and his a bit,

He says his fore and after grace for it:

If meat he wants, then grace he says to see

His hungry belly borne on legs jail-free.

Thus have, or have not, all alike is good

To this our poor yet ever patient Flood.

When Pimp’s feet sweat, as they do often use,

There springs a soap-like lather in his shoes.

In Den’shire Kersey Lusk, when he was dead,

Would shrouded be and therewith buried.

When his assigns asked him the reason why,

He said, because he got his wealth thereby.

In’s Tusc’lans, Tully doth confess,

No plague there’s like to foolishness.

Rush saves his shoes in wet and snowy weather;

And fears in summer to wear out the leather;

This is strong thrift that wary Rush doth use

Summer and winter still to save his shoes.

The staff is now greas’d;

And very well pleas’d,

She cocks out her arse at the parting,

To an old ram goat

That rattles i’ th’ throat,

Half-choked with the stink of her farting.

In a dirty hair-lace

She leads on a brace

Of black boar-cats to attend her:

Who scratch at the moon,

And threaten at noon

Of night from heaven for to rend her.

A-hunting she goes,

A cracked horn she blows,

At which the hounds fall a-bounding;

While th’ moon in her sphere

Peeps trembling for fear,

And night’s afraid of the sounding.