Nobody says goodbye in a straight line, and Herrick's dialogue knows it. A man asks the woman he loves, who is about to leave, where he might find her. She answers with a meadow. He answers with a court. They argue about where she belongs, and the argument tells us how much they feel. The title names the speakers as Herrick himself and "Mistress Eliza Wheeler, under the name of Amarillis", a pastoral name from the old tradition of shepherd poetry. That sets up a game: two people speak as if in a country idyll while facing a real parting.
The opening stanza is plain pleading. "For love or pity, let me know / The place where I may find thee." The phrase "love or pity" is touching because he will settle for either. The metre is a light, songlike iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth lines end on feminine rhymes ("behind thee" / "find thee"). The voice seems to trail after her even as the sentence ends.
Amarillis replies with a picture, not an address: "country meadows, pearl'd with dew, / And set about with lilies". The verb "pearl'd" matters. She describes grass as jewellery, and the "maunds" (baskets) she fills with cowslips add a small, practical detail. Herrick then tries to persuade her upward, to a court where she could wear "richest gems" and "like the stars … glitter". His argument is weakened by the poem's own imagery, because the meadow already has its pearls, and they cost nothing. His phrase "country wenches" and their "posies" sounds dismissive, and "the queen of men, not flowers" is a compliment with a little pressure behind it. It pulls her toward rank and display.
She resists with modesty and a sharp word choice. "You set too-high a rate upon / A shepherdess so homely." "Rate" is the language of the market, and she turns it against his flattery, as if he were overpricing her. "Homely" here means plain and unpretentious. His reply, "there's not one / I' th' court that's half so comely", is affectionate but is really a compliment, not an answer. She never argues back. She simply says "I must away."
The structure carries much of the meaning. Control of the dialogue changes as the poem goes on. Herrick has the first stanza alone, then each speaker gets a full stanza. In the fifth stanza they split it, two lines each, and the rhyme (*upon* / *one*) jumps from one mouth to the other. In the last stanza the exchange tightens to half-lines ("I prithee stay. AMARIL. I must away"), and then the speakers merge. The label AMBO, Latin for "both", gives them the final two lines together. A disagreement that began as two separate voices ends in one, and the form does what the lovers want to do.
That last stanza turns a farewell into something close to a promise. "Let's kiss first, then we'll sever" is brisk and almost casual, and "sever" is the harshest word in the poem, softened by the kiss before it. Then comes the closing couplet: "though we bid adieu to day, / We shall not part for ever." Judging by the imagery, the parting happens at dusk. The words "adieu to day" could mean only that night is falling, and "for ever" could mean they will meet again tomorrow. The poem does not decide, and the wider echo of a final parting hovers behind the gentle tone. The simple rhyme of *day* with *away* makes the reassurance sound like something they both choose to believe.
The poem is worth reading because it holds a real emotion inside a tiny, tidy, playful frame. It uses the familiar contrast between simple country life and glittering court life, but instead of lecturing, it lets two voices argue, flatter and slowly agree. Herrick's mastery lies in making that agreement feel earned in twenty-four short lines.