Robert Herrick (poet)

Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick, 1904 illustration based on Hesperides impression
Born	baptised (1591-08-24)24 August 1591 Cheapside, London, England
Died	buried 15 October 1674(1674-10-15) (aged 83) Dean Prior, Devon, England
Occupation	Poet and cleric
Language	Early Modern English
Alma mater	St John's College, Cambridge
Notable works	"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" Hesperides

Robert Herrick (baptised 24 August 1591 – buried 15 October 1674) was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is best known for Hesperides, a book of poems. This includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", with the first line "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may".

Born in Cheapside, London, he was the seventh child and fourth son of Julia Stone and Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith. His father died in a fall from a fourth-floor window in November 1592, when Robert was a year old (whether this was suicide remains unclear). The tradition that Herrick received his education at Westminster is based on the words "beloved Westminster" in his poem "Tears to Thamesis", but the allusion is to the city, not the school. It is more likely that (like his uncle's children) he attended The Merchant Taylors' School. In 1607 he became apprenticed to his uncle, Sir William Herrick, who was a goldsmith and jeweler to the king. The apprenticeship ended after only six years when Herrick, at age twenty-two, matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge. He later migrated to Trinity Hall graduating in 1617. Robert Herrick became a member of the Sons of Ben, a group centered upon an admiration for the works of Ben Jonson. Herrick wrote at least five poems to Jonson. Herrick was ordained in 1623 and in 1629 became the vicar of Dean Prior in Devonshire.

In 1647, in the wake of the English Civil War, Herrick was ejected from his vicarage for refusing the Solemn League and Covenant. He then returned to London, living in Westminster and depending on the charity of his friends and family. He spent some time preparing his lyric poems for publication, and had them printed in 1648 under the title Hesperides; or the Works both Human and Divine of Robert Herrick, with a dedication to the Prince of Wales.