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Any Way For Wealth.
By Robert Herrick
E'en all religious courses to be rich
Hath been rehers'd by Joel Michelditch:
But now perceiving that it still does please
The sterner fates, to cross his purposes;
He tacks about, and now he doth profess
Rich he will be by all unrighteousness;
Thus if our ship fails of her anchor hold
We'll love the divel, so he lands the gold.
Extra Info:
Any way for Wealth. A variation on Horace's theme: "Rem facias, rem, si possis, recte, si non quocunque modo, rem". 1 Epist. i. 66.
The Portrait of a Woman: I subjoin here the four passages found in manuscript versions of this poem, alluded to in the previous note. As said before, they do not improve the poem. After l. 45, "Bearing aloft this rich round world of wonder," we have these four lines:
In which the veins implanted seem to lie
Like loving vines hid under ivory,
So full of claret, that whoso pricks this vine
May see it spout forth streams like muscadine.
Twelve lines later, after "Riphean snow," comes a longer passage:
Or else that she in that white waxen hill
Hath seal'd the primrose of her utmost skill.
But now my muse hath spied a dark descent
From this so precious, pearly, permanent,
A milky highway that direction yields
Unto the port-mouth of the Elysian fields:
A place desired of all, but got by these
Whom love admits to the Hesperides;
Here's golden fruit, that doth exceed all price,
Growing in this love-guarded paradise;
Above the entrance there is written this:
This is the portal to the bower of bliss,
Through midst whereof a crystal stream there flows
Passing the sweet sweet of a musky rose.
With plump, soft flesh, of metal pure and fine,
Resembling shields, both pure and crystalline.
Hence rise those two ambitious hills that look
Into th' middle, sweet, sight-stealing crook,
Which for the better beautifying shrouds
Its humble self 'twixt two aspiring clouds
The third addition is four lines from the end, after "with a pearly shell":
Richer than that fair, precious, virtuous horn
That arms the forehead of the unicorn.
The last four lines are joined on at the end of all:
Unto the idol of the work divine
I consecrate this loving life of mine,
Bowing my lips unto that stately root
Where beauty springs; and thus I kiss her foot.
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