His Return To London

From the dull confines of the drooping West
To see the day spring from the pregnant East,
Ravish’d in spirit I come, nay, more, I fly
To thee, bless’d place of my nativity!
Thus, thus with hallowed foot I touch the ground,
With thousand blessings by thy fortune crown’d.
O fruitful Genius! that bestowest here
An everlasting plenty, year by year.
O place! O people! Manners! fram’d to please
All nations, customs, kindreds, languages!
I am a free-born Roman; suffer, then,
That I amongst you live a citizen.
London my home is: though by hard fate sent
Into a long and irksome banishment;
Yet since call’d back; henceforward let me be,
O native country, repossess’d by thee!
For, rather than I’ll to the West return,
I’ll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.
His Return To London

by Robert Herrick, 1648
