Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Return to London
By Robert Herrick (1591–1674)F
To see the day spring from the pregnant east,
Ravisht in spirit, I come, nay more, I flie
To thee, blest place of my nativitie!
Thus, thus with hallowed foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown’d.
O fruitful genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, yeere by yeere.
O place! O people! manners! fram’d to please
All nations, customes, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer then,
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is; though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment,
Yet since call’d back, henceforward let me be,
O native countrey, repossest by thee!
For, rather then I ’le to the west return,
I ’le beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred reliques buriall.