To Find God

By Robert Herrick 1591–1674 Robert Herrick

Weigh me the fire; or canst thou find

A way to measure out the wind?

Distinguish all those floods that are

Mixed in that wat’ry theater,

And taste thou them as saltless there,

As in their channel first they were.

Tell me the people that do keep

Within the kingdoms of the deep;

Or fetch me back that cloud again,

Beshivered into seeds of rain.

Tell me the motes, dust, sands, and spears

Of corn, when summer shakes his ears;

Show me that world of stars, and whence

They noiseless spill their influence.

This if thou canst; then show me Him

That rides the glorious cherubim.

Biography

Almost forgotten in the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth century alternately applauded for his poetry’s lyricism and condemned for its “obscenities,” Robert Herrick is, in the latter half of the twentieth century, finally becoming recognized as one of the most accomplished nondramatic poets of his age. Long dismissed as merely a “minor poet” and, as a consequence, neglected or underestimated by scholars and critics, the . . .

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