[331]. To his honoured kinsman, Sir William Soame. The second son of Sir Stephen Soame, Lord Mayor of London in 1598. Herrick's father and Sir Stephen married sisters.
As benjamin and storax when they meet. Instances of the use of "Benjamin" for gum benzoin will be found in the Dictionaries. Dr. Grosart's gloss, "Benjamin, the favourite youngest son of the Patriarch," is unfortunate.
[336]. His Age: dedicated to ... M. John Wickes under the name of Posthumus. There is an important version of this poem in Egerton MS., 2725, where it is entitled Mr. Herrick's Old Age to Mr. Weekes. I do not think it has been collated before. Stanzas i.-vi. contain few variants; ii. 6 reads: "Dislikes to care for what's behind"; iii. 6: "Like a lost maidenhead," for "Like to a lily lost"; v. 8: "With the best and whitest stone"; vi. 1: "We'll not be poor". After this we have two stanzas omitted in 1648:—
"We have no vineyards which do bear
Their lustful clusters all the year,
Nor odoriferous
Orchards, like to Alcinous;
Nor gall the seas
Our witty appetites to please
With mullet, turbot, gilt-head bought
At a high rate and further brought.
"Nor can we glory of a great
And stuffed magazine of wheat;
We have no bath
Of oil, but only rich in faith
O'er which the hand
Of fortune can have no command,
But what she gives not, she not takes,
But of her own a spoil she makes."
Stanza vii., l. 2, has "close" for "both"; l. 3 "see" for "have"; l. 6, "open" for "that cheap"; l. 7, "full" for "same". Stanzas x.-xvii. have so many variants that I am obliged to transcribe them in full, though they show Herrick not at his best, and the poem is not one to linger over:—
10.
"Live in thy peace; as for myself,
When I am bruisèd on the shelf
Of Time, and read
Eternal daylight o'er my head:
When with the rheum,
With cough and ptisick, I consume
Into an heap of cinders: then
The Ages fled I'll call again,
11.
"And with a tear compare these last
And cold times unto those are past,
While Baucis by
With her lean lips shall kiss them dry
Then will we sit
By the fire, foretelling snow and sleet
And weather by our aches, grown
†Old enough to be our own