Herrick, Robert 1591-1674
English poet

Born in London, the son of a goldsmith, he was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, ordained in 1623 and worked in Devon from 1629 until he was deprived of his living in 1647 for being a Royalist. His writing is mainly collected in Hesperides: or the Works both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick Esq (1648), with a separate section of religious verse entitled Noble Numbers. He was at his best when describing rural rites as in The Hock Cart and Twelfth Night, and in well-known lyrics such as 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may' and 'Cherry Ripe'. Youth and love and the pagan fields were his themes at a time when the West Country was devastated by the Civil War. He resumed his living in his Devon parish in 1662 after the Restoration.

Bibliography: John Press, Robert Herrick (1961); M Chute, Two Gentlemen: the lives of George Herbert and Robert Herrick (1960)