The Wassail, Robert Herrick, 1900

Poems of Robert Herrick: A Selection from Hesperides and Noble Numbers By Robert Herrick, Thomas Bailey Aldrich:



A wassail poem from the author of the much-beloved song Candlemas Eve.



Upon him who only can Be in prose a grateful man 136 THE WASSAIL GIVE way give way ye gates and win An easy blessing to your bin And basket by our entering in May both with manchet stand replete Your larders too so hung with meat That though a thousand thousand eat Yet ere twelve moons shall whirl about Their silvery spheres there s none may doubt But more s sent in than was served out Next may your dairies prosper so As that your pans no ebb may know But if they do the more to flow Like to a solemn sober stream Bank d all with lilies and the cream Of sweetest cowslips filling them Then may your plants be pres d with fruit Nor bee or hive you have be mute But sweetly sounding like a lute 114 POEMS OF ROBERT HERRICK "






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