There is not much in this little parish at the present day to remind one of Herrick. The vicarage is probably an enlargement of the poet’s house. The newer part stands on a somewhat higher level than the old, and this last is probably the “cell,” whose humble comforts Herrick extols in one of his most true and charming pieces. The present vicar, Mr. Perry-Keene, who is himself something of a poet, and knows and loves well his great predecessor, showed me what he believes to be Herrick’s “byn.”
Just opposite the Vicarage stands the Church, which Mr. Perry-Keene tells me has been altered a great deal. It now contains a monument to Herrick erected in 1857 by a remote kinsman, Mr. William Perry Herrick.
Opposite this recent memorial, in the south aisle, stands a far more interesting monument. It is a brass with three figures—husband, wife, and son—but no name or inscription which might give a clue to the name is legible. Underneath it, however, run the following verses:—
No trust to metals nor to marbles, when
These have their fate and wear away as men.
Times, Titles, Trophies may be lost and spent,
But virtue rears the eternal monument.
What more than these can Tombs or Tomb-stones pay?
But here’s the sunset of a tedious day.
These two asleep are: I’ll but be undrest,