Robert Herrick offers a playful little myth: the very first springs were once young women in love. They lost whoever it was they adored, and Love himself – the god, that is – turned them into the flowing waters we still see. That soft, grieving murmur a spring makes as it slips away from its banks? It’s really the maidens’ own pretty whimpering, unchanged. Their bodies have dissolved, but the sound of their longing is exactly what it was. The poem feels less like sorrow and more like a wistful half-smile, as if Herrick is leaning in to share a secret. Nature, he implies, is built from old heartache, but it’s been made so gentle we can hardly tell. The mood is delicate and slightly enchanted, like a fable whispered beside a stream.
HOW SPRINGS CAME FIRST — Summary
These springs were maidens once that loved, But lost to that they most approved: My story tells, by Love they were Turn'd to these springs which we see here: The pretty whimpering that they make, When of the banks their leave they take, Tells ye but this, they are the same, In nothing changed but in their name.