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Proof To No Purpose

By Robert Herrick

Topics: classic

You see this gentle stream that glides, Shoved on, by quick-succeeding tides: Try if this sober stream you can Follow to th' wider ocean, And see, if there it keeps unspent In that congesting element. Next, from that world of waters, then By pores and caverns back again Induct that inadultrate same Stream to the spring from whence it came. This with a wonder when ye do, As easy, and else easier too: Then ye may recollect the grains Of my particular remains, After a thousand lusters hurled, By roughing winds, around the world.

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"You see this gentle stream that glides,..."

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Author:Robert Herrick

"You see this gentle stream that glides,..." by Robert Herrick

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Robert Herrick

About Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick (1591–1674) was an English Cavalier poet whose "Hesperides" (1648) contains over 1,200 poems. His carpe diem verse "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" ("Gather ye rosebuds while ye may") and lyric poems celebrate love, beauty, and the passing of time.

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