Page 129 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
by Robert Herrick, pages 12-13

Vocabulary
coy – shy
tarry – delay

1. In the first stanza, Herrick writes of rosebuds and the brevity of their beauty. For what are
rosebuds actually a metaphor?

2. The second stanza contains examples of what two poetic devices?

3. What advice does the speaker give to the virgins he is addressing in the last stanza?

4. In what ways does the poem reflect ideas present in Ben Jonson’s “To Celia”?

S-15