Robert Herrick: To Dean Bourn, A Rude River in Devon

TO DEAN BOURN, A RUDE RIVER IN DEVON
BY WHICH SOMETIMES HE LIVED.
by Robert Herrick

DEAN BOURN, farewell ; I never look to see
Dean, or thy watery incivility.
Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams
And makes them frantic even to all extremes,
To my content I never should behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover
Thy men, and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners, now and ever known
To be a rocky generation!
A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude almost as rudest salvages,
With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men.

Salvages, savages.

Source:
Herrick, Robert. Works of Robert Herrick. vol I.
Alfred Pollard, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1891. 33.

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