Robert Herrick. To Virgins.

TO VIRGINS.
by Robert Herrick

HEAR, ye virgins, and I'll teach
What the times of old did preach.
Rosamond was in a bower
Kept, as Danae in a tower :
But yet love, who subtile is,
Crept to that, and came to this.
Be ye lock'd up like to these,
Or the rich Hesperides,
Or those babies in your eyes,
In their crystal nunneries ;
Notwithstanding love will win,
Or else force a passage in :
And as coy be as you can,
Gifts will get ye, or the man.

Babies in your eyes, see Note to p.17.

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol I.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 151.

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