Tag Archives: George Herbert

Jordan [I]

The Church of Greville. Jean-François Millet.

 

Jordan [I]

George Herbert

 

Who says that fictions only and false hair

Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?

Is all good structure in a winding stair?

May no lines pass, except they do their duty

Not to a true, but painted chair?

 

Is it not verse, except enchanted groves

And sudden arbors shadow coarse-spun lines?

Must purling streams refresh a lover’s loves?

Must all be veil’d, while he that reads divines,

Catching the sense at two removes?

 

Shepherds are honest people; let them sing:

Riddle who list, for me, and pull for Prime:

I envy no man’s nightingale or spring;

Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,

Who plainly say, My God, My King.

 

Metaphysical poet George Herbert questions the idea that poetry must be a beautiful fiction—as C.S. Lewis phrased it, “breathing lies through silver.” The stanzas Herbert writes in honor of his God find their poetic beauty in truth and directness. Compare and contrast this poem with the Emily Dickinson poem that begins “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant,” featured yesterday on Wrestle with the Angel.

Prayer [I]

Prayer Before Meal. Jan Steen. 1660.

 

Prayer [I]

George Herbert

 

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth,

Engine against th’Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

 

A Little Poetry—My birthday falls on a Sunday this year, and I am celebrating with a favorite poem by a favorite religious poet. George Herbert presents in this poem an almost rhapsodic cascade of images—sometimes startling—of Christian prayer; human language is overwhelmed by divine plenitude.

Malcolm Guite shares on his blog an excellent excerpt about Herbert’s sonnet, from the book Faith, Hope, and Poetry. <http://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/george-herbert-and-the-insights-of-prayer/>

A ‘plummet’ is a plumb line, used for measuring depth. An ‘engine’ is a mechanical device used in warfare.

The Pulley

Life Line. Winslow Homer. 1884.

 

The Pulley

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 

When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by,

“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can.

Let the world’s riches, which disperséd lie,

Contract into a span.”

 

So strength first made a way;

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.

When almost all was out, God made a stay,

Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure,

Rest in the bottom lay.

 

“For if I should,” said he,

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature,

He would adore my gifts instead of me,

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;

So both should losers be.

 

“Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness;

Let him be rich and weary, that at least,

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness

May toss him to my breast.”

The Elixer


Peasant Woman Sweeping the Floor. Vincent van Gogh. 1885.

 

 

The Elixer

George Herbert (1593-1633)

 

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things thee to see,

And what I do in anything,

To do it as for thee:

 

Not rudely, as a beast,

To runne into an action;

But still to make thee prepossest,

And give it his perfection.

 

A man that looks on glasse,

On it may stay his eye;

Or, if he pleaseth, through it passe

And then the heav’n espie.

 

All may of thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture (for thy sake)

Will not grow bright and clean.

 

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgerie divine:

Who sweeps a room as for thy laws,

Makes that and th’ action fine.

 

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

 

A Little Poetry—Medieval apothecaries sought diligently after a mythical substance that would change base metals to precious gold. In George Herbert’s most famous poem, he employed this legendary elixer, or tincture, as a metaphysical conceit to describe the heavenly transformation of ‘drudgerie’ into divine service. It’s a poem I have dedicated to memory, a reminder to be deliberate in dedicating all my work to the Lord. “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24.

(In literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem.)

Gratefulness

The Angelus. Jean-François Millet. 1859.

 

Gratefulness

George Herbert

 

Thou hast given so much to me;

Give one thing more—a grateful heart.

See how thy beggar works on thee

By art.

 

He makes thy gifts occasion more,

And says, If he be in this crossed,

All thou hast giv’n him heretofore

Is lost.

 

But thou didst reckon, when at first

Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,

What it would come to at the worst

To save:

 

Perpetual knockings at thy door,

Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,

Gift upon gift. Much would have more

And comes.

 

This notwithstanding, thou wenst on

And didst allow us all our noise;

Nay, thou hast made a sigh and groan

Thy joys.

 

Not that thou hadst not still above

Much better tunes than groans can make,

But that these country-airs thy love

Did take.

 

Wherefore I cry and cry again,

And in no quiet thou canst be,

Till I a thankful heart obtain

Of thee—

 

Not thankful when it pleaseth me

(As if thy blessings had spare days),

But such a heart whose pulse may be

Thy praise.