Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem, presented this month by Bibliophiles. I'm Heidi White, and today is Friday, February 4th. And today I'm going to read for you a poem by English poet Robert Herrick. He lived a long time ago, from 1591 to 1674. He lived an interesting life. He was born to a London goldsmith and was apprenticed to his uncle at age 16, but didn't really take. Instead, he went to Cambridge and matriculated from St. John's College. He was a disciple of Ben Johnson, the famous Elizabethan poet and playwright. He was also involved in politics.

He became a vicar and was a clergyman for many years and obviously a poet.

And today's poem is called Upon Julia's Close, and this is how it goes.

When as in silks, my Julia goes, then, then, me thinks,

how sweetly flows the liquefication of her clothes. Next, when I cast mine eyes and see that brave vibration each way free. Oh, how that glittering

taketh me. This is obviously a very short poem. And I chose to read it today because we read this

just a few days ago in one of my

humanities classes. We read a poem to begin each class. And one of my students said that this was

her favorite poem that she had stumbled upon it in a children's anthology when she was a very

young girl. And it had just captured her

imagination. And she loved it. And it was her favorite poem. And I've been thinking about that

ever since. And even in its simplicity, it is very worthy of being somebody's favorite poem.

And I asked her, why is it your favorite poem? And she said, because of the word

liquefification. And I'm sure you caught that upon my reading of it. The word liquefication is such a

beautiful and unexpected word. And it carries the whole poem. It really carries the weight of the poem.

This is a short poem. It's only two stanzas and six lines long. And this, I think that's the

perfect length for this poem, the fact that it's so short because that particular word,

liquefication, really carries the weight of the image of this poem. It is, of course, a man,

the narrator, watching his lady walk. And the way that her clothes cling to her, the way that

they swing around her, their vibration and their glittering, which are two other really

strong words that are used

in this poem, captivate him. And this is part of a common court tradition of the time in which

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