The White Island, or Place of the Blest

By Robert Herrick 1591–1674 Robert Herrick

In this world, the isle of dreams,

While we sit by sorrow’s streams,

Tears and terrors are our themes

Reciting:

But when once from hence we fly,

More and more approaching nigh

Unto young eternity,

Uniting:

In that whiter island, where

Things are evermore sincere;

Candor here and luster there

Delighting:

There no monstrous fancies shall

Out of hell an horror call,

To create, or cause at all,

Affrighting.

There, in calm and cooling sleep

We our eyes shall never steep,

But eternal watch shall keep,

Attending

Pleasures, such as shall pursue

Me immortalized, and you;

And fresh joys, as never too

Have ending.

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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