C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Herrick

Against diseases here the strongest fence,

Is the defensive virtue, abstinence.

All things decay with time; the forest sees

The growth and downfall of her aged trees:

That timber tall, which threescore lustres stood

The proud dictator of the state-like wood—

I mean the sov’reign of all plants, the oak,

Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver’s stroke.

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;

Nothing’s so hard but search will find it out.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

Give house-room to the best; ’tis never known

Vertue and pleasure both to dwell in one.

Give me a kisse, and to that kisse a score;

Then to that twenty, adde a hundred more;

A thousand to that hundred; so kiss on,

To make that thousand up a million;

Treble that million, and when that is done,

Let’s kisse afresh, as when we first begun.

Go to your banquet then, but use delight

So as to rise still with an appetite.

Hast thou attempted greatness?

Then go on;

Back-turning slackens resolution.

He who has suffered shipwreck, fears to sail

Upon the seas, though with a gentle gale.

Hell is no other but a soundless pit,

Where no one beame of comfort peeps in it.

Here she lies a pretty bud,

Lately made of flesh and blood;

Who, as soon fell fast asleep,

As her little eyes did peep.

Give her strewings, but not stir

The earth, that lightly covers her.

I saw a flie within a beade

Of amber cleanly buried.

In prayer the lips ne’er act the winning part

Without the sweet concurrence of the heart.

Know when to speak, for many times it brings

Danger to give the best advice to kings.

Learn this of me, where’er thy lot doth fall,

Short lot, or not, to be content with all.

Let wealth come in by comely thrift,

And not by any sordid shift;

’T is haste

Make waste;

Extremes have still their fault.

Who gripes too hard the dry and slipp’ry sand,

Holds none at all, or little, in his hand.

Let’s live with that small pittance which we have;

Who covets more is evermore a slave.

Like will to like; each creature loves his kind.

Chaste words proceed still from a bashful mind.

Love is maintain’d by wealth: when all is spent,

Adversity then breeds the discontent.

Oft have I heard both youths and virgins say,

Birds choose their mates, and couple too, this day;

But by their flight I never can divine

When I shall couple with my Valentine.

Our present tears here, not our present laughter

Are but the handsells of our joys hereafter.

Some ask’d how pearls did grow, and where?

Then spoke I to my girl,

To part her lips, and show’d them there

The quarrelets of Pearl.

Temptations hurt not, though they have accesse;

Satan o’ercomes none but by willingnesse.

The readinesse of doing doth expresse

No of other but the doer’s willingnesse.

The stars of the night

Will lend thee their light,

Like tapers clear without number!

Thou art a plant sprung up to wither never

But, like a laurel, to grow green forever.

Thus times do shift; each thing his turne does hold;

New things succeed, as former things grow old.

’Tis hard to find God, but to comprehend

Him, as He is, is labour without end.

To get thine ends, lay bashfulnesse aside;

Who feares to aske, doth teach to be deny’d.

’Twixt kings and tyrants there’s this difference known

Kings seek their subjects’ good, tyrants their own.

Upon her cheeks she wept, and from those showers

Sprang up a sweet nativity of flowers.

We credit most our sight; one eye doth please

Our trust far more than ten ear witnesses.

What is a kisse? Why this, as some approve:

The sure sweet sement, glue, and lime of love.

When one is past, another care we have;

Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.

When words we want, love teacheth to indite;

And what we blush to speak, she bids us write.

Who after his transgression doth repent,

Is halfe, or altogether, innocent.

A spark neglected makes a mighty fire.

But ne’er the rose without the thorn.

It is the will that makes the action good or ill.

Kings ought to shear, not skin their sheep.

Necessity makes dastards valiant men.

Nothing is so hard but search will find it out.

Satan o’ercomes none but by willingness.

Tears are the noble language of the eye.

That happiness does still the longest thrive where joys and griefs have turns alternative.

That man lives twice that lives the first life well.

The breath of popular applause.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun.

Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.

’T is the will that makes the action good or ill.

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