Source identified1
Image design Rose Studio
Read & copy
“A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness;”
Meaning & context
Herrick finds aesthetic charm in slight irregularity, arguing through the poem’s speaker that carefully imperfect appearance can feel more alive than rigid precision.
Source details
“Delight in Disorder,” from Hesperides (1648), represented by Project Gutenberg #1211. The poem is a seventeenth-century lyric of attraction and dress; its period language is preserved as aesthetic poetry rather than a modern norm about appearance.