Love
To Anthea.
From Hesperides (1648)
AH my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
(Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak.)
Give me a kisse, and to that kisse a score;
Then to that twenty, adde an hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kisse on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kisse afresh, as when we first begun.
But yet, though Love likes well such Scenes as these,
There is an Act that will more fully please:
Kissing and glancing, soothing, all make way
But to the acting of this private Play:
Name it I would; but being blushing red,
The rest Ile speak, when we meet both in bed.
Cite this poem
MLA
Herrick, Robert. “To Anthea.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/herrick/72/.
Chicago
Herrick, Robert. “To Anthea.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/herrick/72/.
Read this poem with the Codex →