To Anthea, Who May Command Him Anything

Robert Herrick

Teacher card

Published: 1648, in Hesperides and Noble Numbers
Length: 24 lines, 152 words, 1 word in 76 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 3–4. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: love, wedding
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

Bid me to live, and I will liveThy Protestant to be,Or bid me love, and I will giveA loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,A heart as sound and freeAs in the whole world thou canst find,That heart I'll give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stayTo honour thy decree:Or bid it languish quite away,And't shall do so for thee.

Bid me to weep, and I will weepWhile I have eyes to see:And, having none, yet I will keepA heart to weep for thee.

Bid me despair, and I'll despairUnder that cypress-tree:Or bid me die, and I will dareE'en death to die for thee.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,The very eyes of me:And hast command of every partTo live and die for thee.

Robert Herrick (died 1674), Hesperides and Noble Numbers (1648), lines 5009–5037 of Project Gutenberg ebook #22421. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for names in posy cardsin posy · 24 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
See how posy takes lines from this poem, then make a card for someone using them.
posy.popplepoetry.com/sources#he-anthea

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/herrick-to-anthea-who-may-command-him-anything · popplepoetry.com