← Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

Robert Herrick. 1591-1674

William Browne. 1590-1645.

Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.[201:1]

Britannia's Pastorals. Book i. Song 2.

Did therewith bury in oblivion.

Britannia's Pastorals. Book ii. Song 2.

Well-languaged Daniel.

Britannia's Pastorals. Book ii. Song 2.

Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones,—come and buy!
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer, there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile,—
There 's the land, or cherry-isle.

Cherry Ripe.

Some asked me where the rubies grew,

And nothing I did say;

But with my finger pointed to

The lips of Julia.

The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls.

Some asked how pearls did grow, and where?

Then spoke I to my girl

To part her lips, and showed them there

The quarelets of pearl.

The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls.

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness.

Delight in Disorder.

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.

Delight in Disorder.

You say to me-wards your affection 's strong;

Pray love me little, so you love me long.[202:1]

Love me Little, Love me Long.

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.[202:2]

To the Virgins to make much of Time.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.

To Music, to becalm his Fever.

Fair daffadills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.

To Daffadills.

Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.[202:3]

Sorrows Succeed.

Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,[202:4]
As if they played at bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.

To Mistress Susanna Southwell.

Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting-stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.

The Night Piece to Julia.

I saw a flie within a beade
Of amber cleanly buried.[203:1]

The Amber Bead.

Thus times do shift,—each thing his turn does hold;

New things succeed, as former things grow old.

Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve.

Out-did the meat, out-did the frolick wine.

Ode for Ben Jonson.

Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;

Nothing 's so hard but search will find it out.[203:2]

Seek and Find.

But ne'er the rose without the thorn.[203:3]

The Rose.