Great Regulars: Like all the great sages from Buddha

to Blake, Herrick gazes upon the new blossoms of spring and sees all of life in their petals. He addresses the blossoms as "pledges," as if each were a promise from nature--a promise of fruitfulness, abundance, and vigor. If they are "fair," then nature itself is not only pretty, it is true and just.

Yet is it fair that in the very act of growth, these blossoms are setting themselves up to fall?

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'To Blossoms' by Robert Herrick

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