Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

ASK me why I send you here

This sweet Infanta of the yeere?

Ask me why I send to you

This Primrose, thus bepearl’d with dew?

I will whisper to your eares,

The sweets of love are mixt with tears.

Ask me why this flower does show

So yellow-green and sickly too?

Ask me why the stalk is weak

And bending, yet it doth not break?

I will answer, these discover

What fainting hopes are in a lover.