Monday, December 5, 2011

Bloom of the Day

Wife of Bath

Everyone knows the lines of Waller’s contemporary
Robert Herrick:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that blooms today
Tomorrow may be dying…
But how many know that the poem is called ‘Advice to Virgins’?
Or know its concluding quatrain?
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.