The Hesperides & Noble Numbers/Hesperides/To Music, to Becalm His Fever

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)2654250The Hesperides & Noble NumbersHesperides
To Music, to Becalm His Fever
1898Alfred Pollard

227. TO MUSIC, TO BECALM HIS FEVER.

Charm me asleep and melt me so
With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravished, hence I go
Away in easy slumbers.

Ease my sick head
And make my bed,
Thou power that canst sever
From me this ill;
And quickly still,
Though thou not kill,
My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire
Into a gentle-licking flame,
And make it thus expire.
Then make me weep
My pains asleep;
And give me such reposes
That I, poor I,
May think thereby
I live and die
'Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.
Melt, melt my pains
With thy soft strains;
That, having ease me given,
With full delight
I leave this light,
And take my flight
For heaven.