The Mad Maid’s Song

Good-morrow to the day so fair,
  Good-morning, sir, to you;
Good-morrow to mine own torn hair,
  Bedabbled with the dew.

Good-morning to this primrose too,
  Good-morrow to each maid
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
  Wherein my love is laid.

Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me,
  Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee
  Which bore my love away.

I’ll seek him in your bonnet brave,
  I’ll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now I think th’ave made his grave
  I’ th’ bed of strawberries.

I’ll seek him there; I know ere this
  The cold, cold earth doth shake him;
But I will go or send a kiss
  By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray, hurt him not, though he be dead,
  He knows well who do love him,
And who with green turfs rear his head,
  And who do rudely move him.

He’s soft and tender (pray take heed);
  With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him home; but ’tis decreed
  That I shall never find him.
The Mad Maid’s Song

by Robert Herrick, 1648
