Part 3 — THE PRIMROSE
Reading edition
Ask me why I send you here This sweet Infanta of the year? Ask me why I send to you This Primrose, thus bepearled with dew? I will whisper to your ears:— The sweets of love are mixed with tears.
Ask me why this flower does show So yellow-green, and sickly too? Ask me why the stalk is weak And bending, yet it doth not break? I will answer:—These discover What fainting hopes are in a lover.
Robert Herrick [1591-1674]