The wake

Robert Herrick 1591 (London) – 1674 (Dean Prior)



Come, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do:
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
Are the junkets still at wakes;
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the business is the sport:
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian, too, in pageantry;
And a mimic to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.
Near the dying of the day
There will be a cudgel-play,
Where a coxcomb will be broke,
Ere a good word can be spoke:
But the anger ends all here,
Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.
--Happy rusticks!  best content
With the cheapest merriment;
And possess no other fear,
Than to want the Wake next year.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

39 sec read
96

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDEFGHFIJJKKLMNCMM
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 701
Words 130
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 24

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was born in London, England, in 1591. He was apprenticed to a goldsmith (his uncle, Sir William), but went to Cambridge, at St John's, in 1613. He was ordained at Peterborough in 1623 and became chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham a few years later. "Hesperides" - a collection of 1200 lyrical poems - was published in 1648 and it remained his magnum opus. Herrick died in 1674, aged 83. more…

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