The Night Piece: To Julia
Robert Herrick’s ‘‘The Night Piece: To Julia’’ is a
twenty-line lyric poem in which the speaker
addresses a woman he desires, imploring her to
visit him at night for a love tryst. In the poem, he
assures her of the safety of the walk through country
fields she would take to reach him. On the surface it
is a witty, unassumingly innocent, even childlike
song of seduction graced by dainty metrics and
musical rhyme, qualities that inform all Herrick’s
lyrics. ‘‘The Night Piece: To Julia’’ also suggests a
spell woven by the poet to ensure not only the
physical safety of his mistress on her walk to his
quarters but also her moral or spiritual innocence.
‘‘The Night Piece: To Julia’’ first appeared in
1648 in Herrick’s only collection published dur-
ing his lifetime,Hesperides; or, The Works Both
Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick, a gather-
ing of some 1,400 of Herrick’s secular and reli-
gious verses. ‘‘The Night Piece: To Julia’’ also
appears inSelected Poems: Robert Herrick(2003).
Author Biography
The exact date of his birth is unknown, but
Robert Herrick’s baptism was recorded on
August 24, 1591. A year later his father, Nich-
olas, a wealthy goldsmith, committed suicide the
day after he wrote his will, declaring his sound-
ness of mind but illness of body. After his
father’s death, Herrick’s mother, Julian, kept
205ROBERT HERRICK
1648