Robert Herrick Works

The Works of Robert Herrick

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The Vine

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Delight in Disorder

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Corinna's Going A-Maying

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Upon Julia's Clothes

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To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time

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THE VINE.

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by Robert Herrick

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I DREAM'D this mortal part of mine

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Was Metamorphoz'd to a Vine;

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Which crawling one and every way,

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Enthrall'd my dainty Lucia.

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Me thought, her long small legs & thighs

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I with my Tendrils did surprize;

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Her Belly, Buttocks, and her Waste

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By my soft Nerv'lits were embrac'd:

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About her head I writhing hung,

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And with rich clusters (hid among

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The leaves) her temples I behung:

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So that my Lucia seem'd to me

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Young Bacchus ravished by his tree.

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My curles about her neck did craule,

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And armes and hands they did enthrall:

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So that she could not freely stir,

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(All parts there made one prisoner.)

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But when I crept with leaves to hide

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Those parts, which maids keep unespy'd,

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Such fleeting pleasures there I took,

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That with the fancie I awook;

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And found (Ah me!) this flesh of mine

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More like a Stock then like a Vine.

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Titian. Bacchus and Ariadne, detail. 1523-24.

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