George Herbert- Collected Poetical Works
Page 10
Maketh two nights to ev’ry day.
Who by aspersions throws a stone
At th’ head of others, hit their own. 10
Who looks on ground with humble eyes,
Finds himself there, and seeks to rise.
When th’ hair is sweet through pride or lust,
The powder doth forget the dust.
Take one from ten, and what remains? 15
Ten still, if sermons go for gains.
In shallow water heav’n doth show;
But who drinks on, to hell may go.
AFFLICTION (5).
My God, I read this day,
That planted Paradise was not so firm,
As was and is thy floating Ark; whose stay
And anchor thou art only, to confirm
And strengthen it in ev’ry age, 5
When waves do rise, and tempests rage.
At first we liv’d in pleasure;
Thine own delights thou didst to us impart:
When we grew wanton, thou didst use displeasure
To make us thine: yet that we might not part, 10
As we at first did board with thee,
Now thou wouldst taste our misery.
There is but joy and grief;
If either will convert us, we are thine:
Some Angels us’d the first; if our relief 15
Take up the second, then thy double line
And sev’ral baits in either kind
Furnish thy table to thy mind.
Affliction then is ours;
We are the trees, whom shaking fastens more, 20
While blust’ring winds destroy the wanton bow’rs,
And ruffle all their curious knots and store.
My God, so temper joy and woe,
That thy bright beams may tame thy bow.
MORTIFICATION.
How soon doth man decay!
When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets
To swaddle infants, whose young breath
Scarce knows the way;
Those clouts are little winding sheets, 5
Which do consign and send them unto death.
When boys go first to bed,
They step into their voluntary graves,
Sleep binds them fast; only their breath
Makes them not dead: 10
Successive nights, like rolling waves,
Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.
When youth is frank and free,
And calls for music, while his veins do swell,
All day exchanging mirth and breath 15
In company;
That music summons to the knell,
Which shall befriend him at the house of death.
When man grows staid and wise,
Getting a house and home, where he may move 20
Within the circle of his breath,
Schooling his eyes;
That dumb inclosure maketh love
Unto the coffin, that attends his death.
When age grows low and weak, 25
Marking his grave, and thawing ev’ry year,
Till all do melt, and drown his breath
When he would speak;
A chair or litter shows the bier,
Which shall convey him to the house of death. 30
Man, ere he is aware,
Hath put together a solemnity,
And dressed his hearse, while he has breath
As yet to spare:
Yet Lord, instruct us so to die, 35
That all these dyings may be life in death.
DECAY.
Sweet were the days, when thou didst lodge with Lot,
Struggle with Jacob, sit with Gideon,
Advise with Abraham, when thy power could not
Encounter Moses’ strong complaints and moan:
Thy words were then, Let me alone. 5
One might have sought and found thee presently
At some fair oak, or bush, or cave, or well:
Is my God this way? No, they would reply:
He is to Sinai gone, as we heard tell:
List, ye may hear great Aaron’s bell. 10
But now thou dost thyself immure and close
In some one corner of a feeble heart:
Where yet both Sin and Satan, thy old foes,
Do pinch and straiten thee, and use much art
To gain thy thirds and little part. 15
I see the world grows old, when as the heat
Of thy great love once spread, as in an urn
Doth closet up itself, and still retreat,
Cold sin still forcing it, till it return,
And calling Justice, all things burn. 20
MISERY.
Lord, let the Angels praise thy name.
Man is a foolish thing, a foolish thing,
Folly and Sin play all his game.
His house still burns, and yet he still doth sing,
Man is but grass, 5
He knows it, fill the glass.
How canst thou brook his foolishness?
Why, he’ll not lose a cup of drink for thee:
Bid him but temper his excess;
Not he: he knows, where he can better be, 10
As he will swear,
Than to serve thee in fear.
What strange pollutions doth he wed,
And make his own? as if none knew, but he.
No man shall beat into his head, 15
That thou within his curtains drawn canst see:
They are of cloth,
Where never yet came moth.
The best of men, turn but thy hand
For one poor minute, stumble at a pin: 20
They would not have their actions scann’d,
Nor any sorrow tell them that they sin,
Though it be small,
And measure not their fall.
They quarrel thee, and would give over 25
The bargain made to serve thee: but thy love
Holds them unto it, and doth cover
Their follies with the wing of thy mild Dove,
Not suff’ring those
Who would, to be thy foes. 30
My God, Man cannot praise thy name:
Thou art all brightness, perfect purity;
The sun holds down his head for shame,
Dead with eclipses, when we speak of thee:
How shall infection 35
Presume on thy perfection?
As dirty hands foul all they touch,
And those things most, which are most pure and fine:
So our clay hearts, ev’n when we crouch
To sing thy praises, make them less divine. 40
Yet either this,
Or none, thy portion is.
Man cannot serve thee; let him go,
And serve the swine: there, there is his delight:
He doth not like this virtue, no; 45
Give him his dirt to wallow in all night:
These Preachers make
His head to shoot and ache.
O foolish man! where are thine eyes?
How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares? 50
Thou pull’st the rug, and wilt not rise,
No, not to purchase the whole pack of stars:
There let them shine,
Thou must go sleep, or dine.
The bird that sees a dainty bow’r 55
Made in the tree, where she was wont to sit,
Wonders and sings, but not his power
Who made the arbour: this exceeds her wit.
But Man doth know
The spring, whence all things flow: 60
And yet as though he knew it not,
His knowledge winks, and lets his humours reign;
They make his life a constant blot,
And all the blood of God to run in vain.
Ah wretch! what verse 65
Can thy strange ways rehearse?
Indeed at first Man was a treasure,
> A box of jewels, shop of rarities,
A ring, whose posy was, My pleasure:
He was a garden in a Paradise: 70
Glory and grace
Did crown his heart and face.
But sin hath fool’d him. Now he is
A lump of flesh, without a foot or wing
To raise him to the glimpse of bliss: 75
A sick toss’d vessel, dashing on each thing;
Nay, his own shelf:
My God, I mean myself.
JORDAN II.
When first my lines of heav’nly joys made mention,
Such was their lustre, they did so excel,
That I sought out quaint words, and trim invention;
My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
Curling with metaphors a plain intention, 5
Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.
Thousands of notions in my brain did run,
Off’ring their service, if I were not sped:
I often blotted what I had begun;
This was not quick enough, and that was dead. 10
Nothing could seem too rich to clothe the sun,
Much less those joys which trample on his head.
As flames do work and wind, when they ascend,
So did I weave my self into the sense.
But while I bustled, I might hear a friend 15
Whisper, How wide is all this long pretence!
There is in love a sweetness ready penned:
Copy out only that, and save expense.
PRAYER II.
Of what an easy quick access,
My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly
May our requests thine ear invade!
To show that state dislikes not easiness,
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made: 5
Thou canst no more not hear, than thou canst die.
Of what supreme almighty power
Is thy great arm which spans the east and west,
And tacks the centre to the sphere!
By it do all things live their measured hour: 10
We cannot ask the thing, which is not there,
Blaming the shallowness of our request.
Of what unmeasurable love
Art thou possessed, who, when thou couldst not die,
Wert fain to take our flesh and curse, 15
And for our sakes in person sin reprove,
That by destroying that which ti’d thy purse,
Thou mightst make way for liberality!
Since then these three wait on thy throne,
Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so, 20
That were I to leave all but one,
Wealth, fame, endowments, virtues, all should go;
I and dear prayer would together dwell,
And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.
OBEDIENCE.
My God, if writings may
Convey a Lordship any way
Whither the buyer and the seller please;
Let it not thee displease,
If this poor paper do as much as they. 5
On it my heart doth bleed
As many lines as there doth need
To pass itself and all it hath to thee.
To which I do agree,
And here present it as my special deed. 10
If that hereafter Pleasure
Cavil, and claim her part and measure,
As if this passèd with a reservation,
Or some such words in fashion;
I here exclude the wrangler from thy treasure. 15
O let thy sacred will
All thy delight in me fulfil!
Let me not think an action mine own way,
But as thy love shall sway,
Resigning up the rudder to thy skill. 20
Lord, what is man to thee,
That thou shouldst mind a rotten tree?
Yet since thou canst not choose but see my actions;
So great are thy perfections,
Thou mayst as well my actions guide, as see. 25
Besides, thy death and blood
Showed a strange love to all our good:
Thy sorrows were in earnest, no faint proffer,
Or superficial offer
Of what we might not take, or be withstood. 30
Wherefore I all forgo:
To one word only I say, No:
Where in the deed there was an intimation
Of a gift or donation,
Lord, let it now by way of purchase go. 35
He that will pass his land,
As I have mine, may set his hand
And heart unto this deed, when he hath read;
And make the purchase spread
To both our goods, if he to it will stand. 40
How happy were my part,
If some kind man would thrust his heart
Into these lines; till in heav’n’s Court of Rolls
They were by winged souls
Ent’red for both, far above their desert! 45
CONSCIENCE.
Peace prattler, do not lour:
Not a fair look, but thou dost call it foul:
Not a sweet dish, but thou dost call it sour:
Music to thee doth howl.
By list’ning to thy chatting fears 5
I have both lost mine eyes and ears.
Prattler, no more, I say:
My thoughts must work, but like a noiseless sphere;
Harmonious peace must rock them all the day:
No room for prattlers there. 10
If thou persistest, I will tell thee,
That I have physic to expel thee.
And the receipt shall be
My Saviour’s blood: whenever at his board
I do but taste it, straight it cleanseth me, 15
And leaves thee not a word;
No, not a tooth or nail to scratch,
And at my actions carp, or catch.
Yet if thou talkest still,
Besides my physic, know there’s some for thee: 20
Some wood and nails to make a staff or bill
For those that trouble me:
The bloody cross of my dear Lord
Is both my physic and my sword.
SION.
Lord, with what glory wast thou serv’d of old,
When Solomon’s temple stood and flourished!
Where most things were of purest gold;
The wood was all embellished
With flowers and carvings, mystical and rare: 5
All showed the builder’s, craved the seer’s care.
Yet all this glory, all this pomp and state
Did not affect thee much, was not thy aim;
Something there was, that sow’d debate:
Wherefore thou quitt’st thy ancient claim: 10
And now thy Architecture meets with sin;
For all thy frame and fabric is within.
There thou art struggling with a peevish heart,
Which sometimes crosseth thee, thou sometimes it:
The fight is hard on either part. 15
Great God doth fight, he doth submit.
All Solomon’s sea of brass and world of stone
Is not so dear to thee as one good groan.
And truly brass and stones are heavy things,
Tombs for the dead, not temples fit for thee: 20
But groans are quick, and full of wings,
And all their motions upward be;
And ever as they mount, like larks they sing;
The note is sad, yet music for a king.
HOME.
Come Lord, my head doth burn, my heart is sick,
While thou dost ever, ever stay:
Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick,
My spirit gaspeth night and day.
O show thyself to me, 5
Or take me up to thee!
How canst thou stay, considering the pace
The blood
did make, which thou didst waste?
When I behold it trickling down thy face,
I never saw thing make such haste. 10
O show thy, & c.
When man was lost, thy pity looked about
To see what help in th’ earth or sky:
But there was none; at least no help without;
The help did in thy bosom lie. 15
O show thy, & c.
There lay thy son: and must he leave that nest,
That hive of sweetness, to remove
Thraldom from those, who would not at a feast
Leave one poor apple for thy love? 20
O show thy, & c.
He did, he came: O my Redeemer dear,
After all this canst thou be strange?
So many years baptis’d, and not appear?
As if thy love could fail or change. 25
O show thyself to me,
Or take me up to thee!
Yet if thou stayest still, why must I stay?
My God, what is this world to me?
This world of woe? hence all ye clouds, away, 30
Away; I must get up and see.
O show thy, & c.
What is this weary world; this meat and drink,
That chains us by the teeth so fast?
What is this woman-kind, which I can wink 35
Into a blackness and distaste?
O show thy, & c.
With one small sigh thou gav’st me th’ other day
I blasted all the joys about me:
And scowling on them as they pin’d away, 40
Now come again, said I, and flout me.
O show thy, & c.
Nothing but drought and dearth, but bush and brake,
Which way soe’er I look, I see.
Some may dream merrily, but when they wake, 45
They dress themselves and come to thee.
O show thy, & c.
We talk of harvests; there are no such things,
But when we leave our corn and hay:
There is no fruitful year, but that which brings 50
The last and lov’d, though dreadful day.
O show thy, & c.
O loose this frame, this knot of man untie!
That my free soul may use her wing,
Which now is pinioned with mortality, 55
As an entangled, hampered thing.
O show thy, & c.
What have I left, that I should stay and groan?
The most of me to heav’n is fled:
My thoughts and joys are all packt up and gone, 60
And for their old acquaintance plead.
O show thy, & c.
Come dearest Lord, pass not this holy season,
My flesh and bones and joints do pray:
And ev’n my verse, when by the rhyme and reason 65