Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. II. The Seventeenth Century: Ben Jonson to Dryden

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

The Mad Maid’s Song

GOOD morrow to the day so fair;

Good morning, sir, to you;

Good morrow to mine own torn hair,

Bedabbled with the dew.

Good morning to this primrose too;

Good morrow to each maid;

That will with flowers the tomb bestrew

Wherein my Love is laid.

Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,

Alack and well-a-day!

For pity, sir, find out that bee,

Which bore my Love away.

I’ll seek him in your bonnet brave;

I’ll seek him in your eyes;

Nay, now I think they ’ve made his grave

I’ th’ bed of strawberries.

I’ll seek him there; I know, ere this,

The cold, cold earth doth shake him;

But I will go, or send a kiss

By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,

He knows well who do love him;

And who with green turfs rear his head,

And who do rudely move him.

He’s soft and tender, pray take heed,

With bands of cowslips bind him,

And bring him home;—but ’tis decreed

That I shall never find him.