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To Music, To Becalm His Fever

by Robert Herrick, 1648

Charm me asleep and melt me so
  With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravished, hence I go
  Away in easy slumbers.
    Ease my sick head
    And make my bed,
  Thou power that canst sever
    From me this ill;
    And quickly still,
    Though thou not kill,
      My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
  From a consuming fire
Into a gentle-licking flame,
  And make it thus expire.
    Then make me weep
    My pains asleep;
And give me such reposes
    That I, poor I,
    May think thereby
    I live and die
      ‘Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
  Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
  A baptism o’er the flowers.
    Melt, melt my pains
    With thy soft strains;
  That, having ease me given,
    With full delight
    I leave this light,
    And take my flight
      For heaven.

Published in Hesperides
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