Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WAKE by ROBERT HERRICK

Poet Analysis

First Line: COME ANTHEA LET US TWO
Last Line: THEN TO WANT THE WAKE NEXT YEARE.
Subject(s): COUNTRY LIFE; HOLIDAYS; NEW YEAR;
Come Anthea let us two
Go to Feast, as others do.
Tarts and Custards, Creams and Cakes,
Are the Junketts still at Wakes:
Unto which the Tribes resort,
Where the businesse is the sport:
Morris-dancers thou shalt see,
Marian too in Pagentrie:
And a Mimick 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.
Neer the dying of the day,
There will be a Cudgell-Play,
Where a Coxcomb will be broke,
Ere a good word can be spoke:
But the anger ends all here,
Drencht in Ale, or drown'd in Beere.
Happy Rusticks, best content
With the cheapest Merriment:
And possesse no other feare,
Then to want the Wake next Yeare.



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