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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
In August 1591 Robert Herrick was the seventh child and fourth son born to a London goldsmith, Nicholas, and his wife, Julian Stone Herrick. When Herrick was fourteen months old,...
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FURTHER READING
Poems About Love
A Birthday
by Christina Rossetti
A Ditty
by Sir Philip Sidney
A Line-storm Song
by Robert Frost
A Negro Love Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
I loved you first... (from Monna Innominata)
by Christina Rossetti
I wish I could remember... (from Monna Innominata)
by Christina Rossetti
In a Boat
by D.H. Lawrence
Love
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Love
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Love in a Life
by Robert Browning
Love's Philosophy
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Lovers' Infiniteness
by John Donne
Meeting at Night
by Robert Browning
No, Love Is Not Dead
by Robert Desnos
She Walks in Beauty
by George Gordon Byron
The Buried Life
by Matthew Arnold
The Definition of Love
by Andrew Marvell
The Kiss
by Stephen Dunn
The Look
by Sara Teasdale
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
by Christopher Marlowe
The White Rose
by John Boyle O'Reilly
Wooing Song
by Giles Fletcher
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To Anthea Who May Command Him Any Thing  
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 't 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.
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