Les plus lus ▸
Robert Herrick
When I behold a forest spread
With silken trees upon thy head;
And when I see that other dress
Of flowers set in comeliness;
When I behold another grace
In the ascent of curious lace,
Which, like a pinnacle, doth shew
The top, and the top-gallant too;
Then, when I see thy tresses bound
Into an oval, square, or round,
And knit in knots far more than I.
Can tell by tongue, or True-love tie;
Next, when those lawny films I see
Play with a wild civility;
And all those airy silks to flow,
Alluring me, and tempting so--
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
diligent at my fit
a one-minute storm
that almost could be art
sorry as a world
with no art is
our one pretty pear
for supper
doubt flowers in each place I drink
each quiet home with the misfortune
of having me within
about my art
about my purpose
and I rant till past two
art that sings
we all unlearn to limn
beginning eyes
take great light
the way I find life
is any day an art
how I look at things
in my room by candlelight
I am plausible in my art
but I rust
I pass so much time
full of sleep
all morning I turn
the garden up
standing in the rows
I look at myself
a simple argument for oats
before art broke me
mind fixed on my art
I have been silent and given
little of myself
the moon at noon
is a brother
to no one
who having proved to be challenged
by difficult art
must be against it
or profess that nothing
ever is beautiful
taking themselves for ordinary people
like unpaid money
whispering to me
not to dance
green called to green
and every place begins
to grow green
an art the morning
did not intend but made
a shift for