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The Hesperides & Noble Numbers/Hesperides/To His Mistresses (Help me! help me! now I call)

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For works with similar titles, see To His Mistresses.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674)118948The Hesperides & Noble NumbersHesperides
To His Mistresses
1898Alfred Pollard

19. TO HIS MISTRESSES.

Help me! help me! now I call
To my pretty witchcrafts all;
Old I am, and cannot do
That I was accustomed to.
Bring your magics, spells, and charms,
To enflesh my thighs and arms.
Is there no way to beget
In my limbs their former heat?
Æson had, as poets feign,
Baths that made him young again:
Find that medicine, if you can,
For your dry decrepit man
Who would fain his strength renew,
Were it but to pleasure you.

Æson, rejuvenated by Medea; see Ovid, Met. vii.