large, Herrick has no single lyric to show equal, in pomp of
music, brilliancy of diction, or elevation of sentiment to some
which Spenser before, Milton in his own time, Dryden and Gray,
Wordsworth and Shelley, since have given us. Nor has he, as
already noticed, the peculiar finish and reserve (if the phrase
may be allowed) traceable, though rarely, in Ben Jonson and
others of the seventeenth century. He does not want passion; yet
his passion wants concentration: it is too ready, also, to dwell
on externals: imagination with him generally appears clothed in
forms of fancy. Among his contemporaries, take Crashaw's
'Wishes': Sir J. Beaumont's elegy on his child Gervase: take
Bishop King's 'Surrender':

My once-dear Love!--hapless, that I no more
Must call thee so. . . . The rich affection's store
That fed our hopes, lies now exhaust and spent,
Like sums of treasure unto bankrupts lent:--
We that did nothing study but the way
To love each other, with which thoughts the day
Rose with delight to us, and with them set,
Must learn the hateful art, how to forget!
--Fold back our arms, take home our fruitless loves,
That must new fortunes try, like turtle doves
Dislodged from their haunts. We must in tears
Unwind a love knit up in many years.
In this one kiss I here surrender thee
Back to thyself: so thou again art free:-

take eight lines by some old unknown Northern singer: