Along with Ben Jonson and J.V. Cunningham, Herrick is one of the few major poets in English to reach systematic mastery of the epigram.
Robert Herrick (1591–1674) was nearly forgotten, a 17th-century Anglican priest whose poetry seemed old-fashioned to the readers of his time, trained up on the intellectual complexities of the Metaphysical Poets. But such popular carpe diem poems as “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” kept him from complete obscurity, and the Victorians would rediscover him — fittingly, for his clever meters and forms match the technical fascinations of many 19th-century poets. Along with Ben Jonson and J.V. Cunningham, Herrick is one of the few major poets in English to reach systematic mastery of the epigram (a difficult form for a sprawling language, easier in Latin and other concise tongues). In “To Keep a True Lent” he constructs nonce quatrains, rhymed abba, that step from three beats, to two, to one, and back to three, all to explain why abstinence from meat during Lent is a symbol of a great repentance before Easter.
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