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This is a slim collection of Herrick's poetry originally published by Everyman in 1996. Herrick was a clergyman and Cavalier poet. He probably best known now for a single poem, 'To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time'. Indeed, he's probably famous just for the first verse of that single poem:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

That poem contains one theme that Herrick touches upon often - mortality and the need to enjoy life as much as possible in the short time we are here. The shortness of life is a constant refrain.

But Herrick's clergyhood - for want of a better word - doesn't stop him writing of love and lust. Indeed, that too is a regular theme of Cavalier poets. They admired wit - in the sense both of cleverness and humorousness - which is also reflected in this selection. Herrick, I suspect, was good company in the tavern over a flagon of sack.

Indeed two poems here - which I read in a Cavalier Poets collection - are odes to giving up sack and then going back to it again. They're funny as well as smart.

There's a handful of poems about the King or his children that to modern ears are ridiculously brown nosing and over the top. But then, as one can see from the present government of a nation across the Atlantic, Kings attract the fawning courtiers.

Is Herrick a great poet? Possibly not, but he is one of the good ones and a collection like this is worth the time it will take you to read it. Some of these poems I was familiar with from the Cavalier poets collection I mentioned before but most of them were new to me.