Featured Poem: To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

Another long Bank Holiday weekend has greeted us, and we do hope you're spending it with plenty of time to relax. There are few greater pleasures in life than sitting back with a poem to read - and although they can give us much to think about, they can also help to calm us too. One of our shared reading group members puts it best:

"I don't think there's anything nicer than sitting there listening to somebody reading for you, I find that really relaxing - you can just let your mind wander and you get all your imaginary pictures, I think that enhances it. It's as though a different part of your brain is involved again. It gets you thinking a bit more."

So here we are with this week's Featured Poem, with a plea that is particularly timely on this occasion.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

Robert Herrick