Welcome to Poetry.com
Poetry.com is a huge collection of poems from famous and amateur poets from around the world — collaboratively published by a community of authors and contributing editors.
Navigate through our poetry database by subjects, alphabetically or simply search by keywords. You can submit a new poem, discuss and rate existing work, listen to poems using voice pronunciation and even translate pieces to many common and not-so-common languages.
“
THE WASSAIL
Robert Herrick 1591 (London) – 1674 (Dean Prior)
Give way, give way, ye gates, and win(0.00 / 0 votes)
An easy blessing to your bin
And basket, by our entering in.
May both with manchet stand replete;
Your larders, too, so hung with meat,
That though a thousand, thousand eat,
Yet, ere twelve moons shall whirl about
Their silv'ry spheres, there's none may doubt
But more's sent in than was served out.
Next, may your dairies prosper so,
As that your pans no ebb may know;
But if they do, the more to flow,
Like to a solemn sober stream,
Bank'd all with lilies, and the cream
Of sweetest cowslips filling them.
Then may your plants be press'd with fruit,
Nor bee or hive you have be mute,
But sweetly sounding like a lute.
Last, may your harrows, shares, and ploughs,
Your stacks, your stocks, your sweetest mows,
All prosper by your virgin-vows.
--Alas! we bless, but see none here,
That brings us either ale or beer;
In a dry-house all things are near.
Let's leave a longer time to wait,
Where rust and cobwebs bind the gate;
And all live here with needy fate;
Where chimneys do for ever weep
For want of warmth, and stomachs keep
With noise the servants' eyes from sleep.
It is in vain to sing, or stay
Our free feet here, but we'll away:
Yet to the Lares this we'll say:
'The time will come when you'll be sad,
'And reckon this for fortune bad,
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
"THE WASSAIL" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 17 Apr. 2021. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/31416/the-wassail>.