Poem by Robert Herrick

The Wake

Come, Anthea, let us two
Go to feast, as others do:
Tarts and custards, creams and cakes,
Are the junkets still at wakes;
Unto which the tribes resort,
Where the business is the sport:
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian, too, in pageantry;
And a mimic to devise
Many grinning properties.
Players there will be, and those
Base in action as in clothes;
Yet with strutting they will please
The incurious villages.
Near the dying of the day
There will be a cudgel-play,
Where a coxcomb will be broke,
Ere a good word can be spoke:
But the anger ends all here,
Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.
—Happy rusticks!  best content
With the cheapest merriment;
And possess no other fear,
Than to want the Wake next year.

1. To Carnations: a Song
2. The Apron of Flowers
3. The Changes: to Corinna
4. The Present; or, The Bag of the Bee
5. A Request to the Graces

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