Robert Herrick. To Jos., Lord Bishop of Exeter.

TO JOS., LORD BISHOP OF EXETER.
by Robert Herrick

WHOM should I fear to write to if I can
Stand before you, my learned diocesan ?
And never show blood-guiltiness or fear
To see my lines excathedrated here.
Since none so good are but you may condemn,
Or here so bad but you may pardon them.
If then, my bed, to sanctify my muse
One only poem out of all you’ll choose,
And mark it for a rapture nobly writ,
‘Tis good confirm’d, for you have bishop’d it.

Excathedrated, condemned ex cathedra.

Bishop Hall
From an engraving of the picture in
Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol I.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 77.

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