To Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
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.
Commentary
I was surprised that Minstrels had not run this famous Herrick poem. My first recollection of the poem is from “Dead Poets Society”, Robin Williams reading it to the students. It’s one of those poems that stays with you forever and a wonderful joy in re-discovering it.
— Nandini
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
PETRANELLA VERNON-TILL · 12 January 2007
Thanks, Thomas, we used to sing this one at school!
Do you like this fragment of Keats?
I STOOD tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, 5 Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn, And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept 10 A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves: For not the faintest motion could be seen Of all the shades that slanted o’er the green.