Robert Herrick

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INTRODUCTION jonathan swift was born in sixteen sixty seven on the thirtieth of november his father was a jonathan swift sixth of the ten sons of rev thomas swift vicar of goodrich near ross in herefordshire who had married elizabeth dryden niece to the poet dryden's grandfather jonathan swift married at leicester abigail herrick who was of the family that had given to england robert herrick the poet As their eldest brother, Godwin, was prospering in Ireland, four other swifts, Dryden, William, Jonathan, and Adam, all in turn found their way to Dublin.

Jonathan was admitted an attorney of the King's Inns, Dublin, and was appointed by the Benchers to the office of steward of the King's Inns in January 1666.

He died in April 1667, leaving his widow with an infant daughter, Jane, an unborn child.

She was headlining guest for three of the Bob Hope specials and toured with Hope US Pacific Command areas for the USO.

During her last TV appearance, only 10 days before her death, she read a poem by Robert Herrick on the Joey Bishop Show.

It was to the virgins to make much of the time and its topic, early death.

Between 1951 and 1965, Mansfield appeared in a variety of plays, from The Slave of Demon Rum, Ten Nights in a Barroom, Macbeth and Anything Goes, to her Broadway success Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, for which she received a Theatre World Award as well as a Golden Globe Award, to the stage production of Bus Stop and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

let me frankly admit to begin with that the attractiveness and probable selling qualities of the title of this little book the hundred best english poems proved when it had been once thought of too powerful arguments for it to be abandoned i am fully conscious of the presumption such a title implies in an unknown selector but at the same time i submit that only a plebiscite of duly qualified lovers of poetry could make a selection that could claim to deserve this title beyond all question and such a plebiscite is of course impossible i can claim no more than that my attempt to realize this title is an honest one and i can assert without fear of contradiction that every one of the poems i have included is a gem of purest ray serene that none can be too often read or too often repeated to one's self that every one of them should be known by heart by every lover of good literature so that each may become as it were a part of his inner being i have not inserted any poems by living authors i have taken the greatest care with the texts of the poems the editions followed have been mentioned in every case i have scrupulously retained the punctuation of these original editions and only modernized the spelling of the old copies while i have not ventured to omit any part of any poem i have not supplied titles of my own but have adopted those i found already employed in the editions used as models or in some of the cases in which i found none have merely added a descriptive one such as song from don juan in conclusion my very warmest thanks are due to messrs macmillan co ltd for permission to include tennyson's crossing the bar to mr d nutt for permission to insert w e henley's to r t h b and margarita to messrs smith elder co for a like privilege in regard to browning's epilogue and to mr lloyd osborne and messrs chatto windus for permission to reproduce stevenson's requiem without these poems the volume would have had a much smaller claim to its title than it does possess slight as that may be My thanks are also due to the following gentlemen who have kindly allowed me to reproduce copyright texts of non-copyright poems from editions published by them.

Messrs. Bickers and Son, Ben Johnson, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, Ltd., Landor, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, Herrick, Mr. Buxton Foreman, Keats and Shelley, Mr. Henry Froud, Wordsworth, Mr. Alex Gardner and the Reverend George Henderson, B.D., Lady Nairn, Messrs. T.C. and E.C. Jack, Burns, Messrs. Macmillan and Company, Limited, Clough and Tennyson, Mr. John Murray, Byron, Messrs. Smith Elder and Company, Browning, Messrs.

Ward Locke and Company, Limited, Coleridge and Hood.

Adam L. Gowans End of prefatory note.

This recording is in the public domain.

gather ye rosebuds while ye may old time is still a-flying and this same flower that smiles to-day to-morrow will be dying the glorious lamp of heaven the sun the higher he's a-getting the sooner will his race be run and nearer he's to setting that age is best which is the first when youth and blood are warmer but being spent the worse and worst times still succeed the former then be not coy but use your time and while ye may go marry for having lost but once your prime you may for ever tarry To Anthea, who may command him anything.

By Robert Herrick.

bid me to live and i will live thy protestant to be or bid me love and i will give a loving heart to thee a heart as soft a heart as kind a heart as sound and free as in the whole world thou canst find that heart i'll give to thee bid that heart stay and it will stay to honour thy decree or bid it languish quite away and shall do so for thee bid me to weep and i will weep while i have eyes to see and having none yet i will keep a heart to weep for thee bid me despair and i'll despair under that cypress tree or bid me die and i will dare e'en death to die for thee thou art my life my love my heart the very eyes of me and hast command of every part to live and die for thee The Death Bed by Thomas Hood we watched her breathing through the night her breathing soft and low as in her breast the wave of life kept heaving to and fro so silently we seemed to speak so slowly moved about as we had lent her half our powers to eke her living out our very hopes belied our fears our fears our hopes belied we thought her dying when she slept and sleeping when she died for when the morn came dim and sad and chill with early showers her quiet eyelids closed she had another morn than ours End of poem.