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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

Delight in Disorder

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

A SWEET disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:

A lawn about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distraction:

An erring lace, which here and there

Enthrals the crimson stomacher:

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribbons to flow confusedly:

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat:

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility:

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.