intentional on Herrick’s part to adapt a church form to his very secular theme.

The stanzaic form is given a sense of lushness and superfluity by the hypermetrical syllable at the end of each second and fourth line. The final syllable is not part of the three feet of the line, but seems to pack it with sound; it is also probably not an accident that these syllables have in each case what is called a “feminine” rhyme.

The iambic pentameter is nearly perfect, although the strength of the stressed syllables varies enough for the poem not to be monotonous. Two variations are worth noting. Both syllables of “gather,” the first word of line one and the first foot of the metrical pattern, have nearly the same stress value, which establishes a sense of the imperative from the outset. The fifth line contains two implied elisions: “glorious” metrically must be “glor’ous” and “heaven,” “heav’n.” Leaving extra syllables that require contraction in the line generates the sense that the sun’s passage is both unusually lengthy and unaccountably shortened.

The punctuation of the sentences is consistent with the ends of lines and stanzas throughout most of the poem, which gives it a calm and measured pace. The caesura that occurs with the comma in the middle of the eleventh line causes a break in the poem, increasing the sense of abrupt finality that comes when youth is “spent.” The only enjambment of the poem follows immediately after, in lines 11 and 12, so that the “worse and worst/ times” that come after youth is spent seem to drag on. The later caesuras in lines 13 and 14 are milder and seem to echo only the first, so that within the advice being given, the threat of that break, that expenditure, is repeating itself.

This poem is part of a tradition of persuasion poems. In Englands Helicon, a miscellany of mostly pastoral poems published in 1600, a poem of Christopher Marlowe’s“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” expresses the same kind of plea by begging, “Come live with me and be my love,” and promising all kinds of sensory delights. It is answered by a poem written by Sir Walter Ralegh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd.” The nymph recites the changes that will be brought about by the passage of time, and asks whether love will “still breed” after them. A few decades after Herrick’s poem, Andrew Marvell published “To His Coy Mistress” (Miscellaneous Poems, 1681), which even repeats the stock images of flowers and the sun used by Herrick.

Dylan Thomas's poetry is marked by an intensely personal style and themes so specific to his own experiences that it bears little connection to the era in which he lived. Critic Jacob Korg observed in a 1965 analysis of Thomas's work that “he was occupied with introspections that lie outside of time and place ... his style owes comparatively little to tradition or example.” Thomas was raised in a middle-class family in a coastal town in southern Wales, with his father serving as the senior English master at the local grammar school. During World War II, Thomas resided in London. He struggled with chronic alcoholism, often stealing from and lying to friends, behaving obnoxiously in public, and ultimately dying from alcohol poisoning after consuming too much too quickly. These aspects of his life are widely known and frequently mentioned, but they appear in his poetry only if one interprets them with a broad imagination.

Welsh Tradition: Similar to traditional Welsh poetry, Thomas's work exhibits two seemingly contradictory tendencies: an intuitive, mystical religious sense and a strong, disciplined structure. Wales, located along England’s western border, has a traditional poetic form called the eisteddfod, used historically by druidic cults and in nature-related religious worship. This form features a robust structure and an elaborate meter, typical of prose intended for recitation rather than reading. While these elements are not overtly present in Thomas's poetry, one can detect a profound personal religious belief, often attributing mystical qualities to natural objects. Additionally, Thomas frequently employed regular rhythm and meter and utilized recognized forms, such as the villanelle found in “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.”

World War II: Following Great Britain’s entry into World War II in 1939, Germany regularly bombed strategic locations in England, particularly London. Wales remained on high alert for a potential naval invasion from Germany or its allies. Throughout this period, Thomas lived in various locations around Wales, mostly settling in the tranquil fishing village of Laugharne. In 1941, after securing a job writing scripts and reciting poetry for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Program 3, Thomas and his wife moved to London. When the United States joined the war in 1941, German resources were somewhat redirected, but sporadic air raids persisted until the war's end in 1945. The war's dangers profoundly shaped a generation of poets, who recognized the futility of mass destruction and lamented the loss of centuries-old sites across Europe. Some British poets also reflected on how the war reduced the United Kingdom to a second-rate power, expressing their pity and frustration in their poetry. However, these themes are only rarely evident in Thomas’s work.

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” consists of four stanzas, each containing four lines. Every stanza is a single sentence. The poem features end rhymes with the pattern abab, cdcd, efef, ghgh.

In this poem, Herrick prefers the trochaic foot, a metrical unit of two syllables where the first is stressed and the second is unstressed. Scanning the first line, written in tetrameter, shows the predominance of this metrical unit:

Ga ther / ye rose / buds while / ye may.

Trochaic feet are challenging to maintain in a lengthy poem because they often produce a rocking rhythm. However, they suit this short poem with its brief lines, reflecting the speaker’s recognition of life's fleeting nature, which is central to the poem’s theme.

• 1946: The surge in demand for consumer goods after the war gave workers significant leverage in wage negotiations. As a result, 4.6 million workers went on strike against their employers, including major companies like Westinghouse, General Motors, meatpacking firms, and the railroads.

  1981: A strike by 13,000 air traffic controllers led to their dismissal by President Ronald Reagan, signaling the beginning of a new pro-employer "union-busting" era.

  Today: Labor unions have the lowest membership rates since the 1940s, and many have minimal influence on wages and benefits.

• 1947: The first casino was constructed in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was the only state permitting legalized gambling at the time.

  1978: Atlantic City, New Jersey, legalized casino gambling to generate tax revenue.

  Today: The majority of states have some form of legalized casino gambling.

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” is included in A Treasury of Great Poetry, an audiocassette compilation produced by Listening Library in 1986. This collection also contains three additional works by Herrick.

Sources
Arms, George, “‘To the Virgins,’” in Explicator Cyclopedia, Vol. 2, Quadrangle Books, 1968, pp. 158–59.

Herrick, Robert, The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, Oxford University Press, 1956.

Rollin, Roger, “Robert Herrick,” in Twayne’s English Authors Series Online, G. K. Hall & Co., 1999.

———, Robert Herrick, Twayne Publishing, 1992.

Swardson, H. R., “Herrick and the Ceremony of Mirth,” in Poetry and the Fountain of Light: Observations on the Conflict between Christian and Classical Traditions in Seventeenth-Century Poetry, University of Missouri Press, 1962, pp. 40–63.

Wentersdorf, Karl P., “Herrick’s Floral Imagery,” in Studia Neophilologica, Vol. XXXVI, 1964, pp. 69–81.

Witherspoon, Alexander, and Frank Warnke, Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

For Further Study
Cannon, John, and Ralph Griffiths, The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy, Oxford University Press, 1988. This detailed overview dedicates about fifty pages to the reign of Charles I, the Civil War, and the Restoration.

Fowler, Alastair, Robert Herrick, Oxford University Press, 1980. This lecture, presented to the British Academy, explores the overall structure of Hesperides, Herrick’s poetry collection, focusing on his use of erotic themes and nature.

MacLeod, Malcolm, A Concordance to the Poems of Robert Herrick, Oxford University Press, 1936. This reference book helps readers find every instance of every word in Herrick’s poetry. For example, one could search for “rosebuds” and locate all eight lines where the term appears. It is an invaluable tool for analyzing Herrick’s use of language and symbolism.

Press, John, Robert Herrick, Longman Group Ltd., 1971. This concise study of Herrick’s reputation suggests that while Herrick may not be considered one of the greatest poets, his poetry still “speaks for the normal sensual man.”

Scott, George Walton, Robert Herrick, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1974. This brief biography of Herrick, based on limited information about his personal life, includes extensive analyses of his work in an accessible style.

Summers, Claude J., and Ted-Larry Pebworth, eds., The English Civil Wars in the Literary Imagination, University of Missouri Press, 1999. This compilation of essays examines how various poets responded to the Puritan Revolution. Although “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” is not specifically discussed, there is an essay on Herrick’s Hesperides, along with pieces on his contemporaries.