Living

How Lillies came white.

by Robert Herrick 1591–1674

From Hesperides (1648)

Living

WHite though ye be; yet, Lillies, know,
From the first ye were not so:
But Ile tell ye
What befell ye;
Cupid and his Mother lay
In a Cloud; while both did play,
He with his pretty finger prest
The rubie niplet of her breast;
Out of the which, the creame of light,
Like to a Dew,
Fell downe on you.
And made ye white.

MLA

Herrick, Robert. “How Lillies came white.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/herrick/191/.

Chicago

Herrick, Robert. “How Lillies came white.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/herrick/191/.

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