Back to Index

Upon M. William Lawes, the Rare Musician

by Robert Herrick, 1648

Should I not put on blacks, when each one here
Comes with his cypress and devotes a tear?
Should I not grieve, my Lawes, when every lute,
Viol, and voice is by thy loss struck mute?
Thy loss, brave man! whose numbers have been hurl’d,
And no less prais’d than spread throughout the world.
Some have thee call’d Amphion; some of us
Nam’d thee Terpander, or sweet Orpheus:
Some this, some that, but all in this agree,
Music had both her birth and death with thee.

Published in Hesperides
Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.