Robert Herrick: To His Mistresses.

TO HIS MISTRESSES.
by Robert Herrick

HELP me ! help me ! now I call
To my pretty witchcrafts all ;
Old I am, and cannot do
That I was accustomed to.
Bring your magics, spells, and charms,
To enflesh my thighs and arms ;
Is there no way to beget
In my limbs their former heat ?
Æson had, as poets feign,
Baths that made him young again :
Find that medicine, if you can,
For your dry, decrepit man
Who would fain his strength renew,
Were it but to pleasure you.

Jan Vermeer. Diana and Her Companions. 1655-56.

Æson, rejuvenated by Medea ; See Ovid, Met. vii.

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol I.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 10.

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