Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Herrick. 15911674270. To Meadows
YE have been fresh and green, | |
Ye have been fill’d with flowers, | |
And ye the walks have been | |
Where maids have spent their hours. | |
You have beheld how they | 5 |
With wicker arks did come | |
To kiss and bear away | |
The richer cowslips home. | |
You’ve heard them sweetly sing, | |
And seen them in a round: | 10 |
Each virgin like a spring, | |
With honeysuckles crown’d. | |
But now we see none here | |
Whose silv’ry feet did tread | |
And with dishevell’d hair | 15 |
Adorn’d this smoother mead. | |
Like unthrifts, having spent | |
Your stock and needy grown, | |
You’re left here to lament | |
Your poor estates, alone. | 20 |