To Groves

Ye silent shades, whose each tree here
Some relique of a saint doth wear,
Who, for some sweetheart’s sake, did prove
The fire and martyrdom of love:
Here is the legend of those saints
That died for love, and their complaints:
Their wounded hearts and names we find
Encarv’d upon the leaves and rind.
Give way, give way to me, who come
Scorch’d with the self-same martyrdom:
And have deserv’d as much (love knows)
As to be canonis’d ‘mongst those
Whose deeds and deaths here written are
Within your greeny calendar:
By all those virgins’ fillets hung
Upon your boughs, and requiems sung
For saints and souls departed hence
(Here honour’d still with frankincense);
By all those tears that have been shed,
As a drink-offering to the dead;
By all those true love-knots that be
With mottoes carv’d on every tree;
By sweet Saint Phyllis pity me:
By dear Saint Iphis, and the rest
Of all those other saints now blest,
Me, me, forsaken, here admit
Among your myrtles to be writ:
That my poor name may have the glory
To live remembered in your story.
To Groves

by Robert Herrick, 1648
