George Herbert- Collected Poetical Works

by George Herbert

  When almost all was out, God made a stay,

  Perceiving that alone of all his treasure

  Rest in the bottom lay. 10

  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. 15

  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. 20

  THE PRIESTHOOD.

  Blest Order, which in power dost so excel,

  That with th’ one hand thou liftest to the sky,

  And with the other throwest down to hell

  In thy just censures; fain would I draw nigh,

  Fain put thee on, exchanging my lay-sword 5

  For that of th’ holy Word.

  But thou art fire, sacred and hallow’d fire;

  And I but earth and clay: should I presume

  To wear thy habit, the severe attire

  My slender compositions might consume. 10

  I am both foul and brittle; much unfit

  To deal in holy Writ.

  Yet have I often seen, by cunning hand

  And force of fire, what curious things are made

  Of wretched earth. Where once I scorn’d to stand, 15

  That earth is fitted by the fire and trade

  Of skilful artists, for the boards of those

  Who make the bravest shows.

  But since those great ones, be they ne’er so great,

  Come from the earth, from whence those vessels come; 20

  So that at once both feeder, dish, and meat

  Have one beginning and one final sum:

  I do not greatly wonder at the sight,

  If earth in earth delight.

  But th’ holy men of God such vessels are, 25

  As serve him up, who all the world commands:

  When God vouchsafeth to become our fare,

  Their hands convey him, who conveys their hands.

  O what pure things, most pure must those things be,

  Who bring my God to me! 30

  Wherefore I dare not, I, put forth my hand

  To hold the Ark, although it seem to shake

  Through th’ old sins and new doctrines of our land.

  Only, since God doth often vessels make

  Of lowly matter for high uses meet, 35

  I throw me at his feet.

  There will I lie, until my Maker seek

  For some mean stuff whereon to show his skill:

  Then is my time. The distance of the meek

  Doth flatter power. Lest good come short of ill 40

  In praising might, the poor do by submission

  What pride by opposition.

  THE SEARCH.

  Whither, O, whither art thou fled,

  My Lord, my Love?

  My searches are my daily bread;

  Yet never prove.

  My knees pierce th’ earth, mine eyes the sky; 5

  And yet the sphere

  And centre both to me deny

  That thou art there.

  Yet can I mark how herbs below

  Grow green and gay, 10

  As if to meet thee they did know,

  While I decay.

  Yet can I mark how stars above

  Simper and shine,

  As having keys unto thy love, 15

  While poor I pine.

  I sent a sigh to seek thee out,

  Deep drawn in pain,

  Wing’d like an arrow: but my scout

  Returns in vain. 20

  I tun’d another (having store)

  Into a groan;

  Because the search was dumb before:

  But all was one.

  Lord, dost thou some new fabric mould, 25

  Which favour wins,

  And keeps thee present, leaving th’ old

  Unto their sins?

  Where is my God? what hidden place

  Conceals thee still? 30

  What covert dare eclipse thy face?

  Is it thy will?

  O let not that of anything;

  Let rather brass,

  Or steel, or mountains be thy ring, 35

  And I will pass.

  Thy will such an entrenching is,

  As passeth thought:

  To it all strength, all subtilties

  Are things of nought. 40

  Thy will such a strange distance is,

  As that to it

  East and West touch, the poles do kiss,

  And parallels meet.

  Since then my grief must be as large, 45

  As is thy space,

  Thy distance from me; see my charge,

  Lord, see my case.

  O take these bars, these lengths away;

  Turn, and restore me: 50

  Be not Almighty, let me say,

  Against, but for me.

  When thou dost turn, and wilt be near;

  What edge so keen,

  What point so piercing can appear 55

  To come between?

  For as thy absence doth excel

  All distance known:

  So doth thy nearness bear the bell,

  Making two one. 60

  GRIEF.

  O who will give me tears? Come all ye springs,

  Dwell in my head and eyes: come clouds, and rain:

  My grief hath need of all the wat’ry things,

  That nature hath produc’d. Let ev’ry vein

  Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, 5

  My weary weeping eyes too dry for me,

  Unless they get new conduits, new supplies

  To bear them out, and with my state agree.

  What are two shallow fords, two little spouts

  Of a less world? the greater is but small, 10

  A narrow cupboard for my griefs and doubts,

  Which want provision in the midst of all.

  Verses, ye are too fine a thing, too wise

  For my rough sorrows: cease, be dumb and mute,

  Give up your feet and running to mine eyes, 15

  And keep your measures for some lover’s lute,

  Whose grief allows him music and a rhyme:

  For mine excludes both measure, tune, and time.

  Alas, my God!

  THE CROSS.

  What is this strange and uncouth thing?

  To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,

  Until I had some place, where I might sing,

  And serve thee; and not only I,

  But all my wealth, and family might combine 5

  To set thy honour up, as our design.

  And then when after much delay,

  Much wrestling, many a combat, this dear end,

  So much desir’d, is giv’n, to take away

  My power to serve thee; to unbend 10

  All my abilities, my designs confound,

  And lay my threat’nings bleeding on the ground.

  One ague dwelleth in my bones,

  Another in my soul (the memory

  What I would do for thee, if once my groans 15

  Could be allow’d for harmony):

  I am in all a weak disabled thing,

  Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.

  Besides, things sort not to my will,

  Ev’n when my will doth study thy renown: 20

  Thou turnest th’ edge of all things on me still,

  Taking me up to throw me down:

  So that, ev’n when my hopes seem to be sped,

  I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

  To have my aim, and yet to be 25

  Farther from it than when I bent my bow;

  To make my hopes my torture, and the fee

  Of all my woes another woe,


  Is in the midst of delicates to need,

  And ev’n in Paradise to be a weed. 30

  Ah my dear Father, ease my smart!

  These contrarieties crush me: these cross actions

  Do wind a rope about, and cut my heart:

  And yet since these thy contradictions

  Are properly a cross felt by thy Son, 35

  With but four words, my words, Thy will be done.

  THE FLOWER.

  How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

  Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;

  To which, besides their own demean,

  The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

  Grief melts away 5

  Like snow in May,

  As if there were no such cold thing.

  Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart

  Could have recovered greenness? It was gone

  Quite underground; as flowers depart 10

  To see their mother-root, when they have blown;

  Where they together

  All the hard weather,

  Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

  These are thy wonders, Lord of power, 15

  Killing and quick’ning, bringing down to hell

  And up to heaven in an hour;

  Making a chiming of a passing-bell.

  We say amiss,

  This or that is: 20

  Thy word is all, if we could spell.

  O that I once past changing were,

  Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!

  Many a spring I shoot up fair,

  Off’ring at heav’n, growing and groaning thither: 25

  Nor doth my flower

  Want a spring-shower,

  My sins and I joining together:

  But while I grow in a straight line,

  Still upwards bent, as if heav’n were mine own, 30

  Thy anger comes, and I decline:

  What frost to that? what pole is not the zone,

  Where all things burn,

  When thou dost turn,

  And the least frown of thine is shown? 35

  And now in age I bud again,

  After so many deaths I live and write;

  I once more smell the dew and rain,

  And relish versing: O my only light,

  It cannot be 40

  That I am he

  On whom thy tempests fell all night.

  These are thy wonders, Lord of love,

  To make us see we are but flowers that glide:

  Which when we once can find and prove, 45

  Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide.

  Who would be more,

  Swelling through store,

  Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

  DOTAGE.

  False glozing pleasures, casks of happiness,

  Foolish night-fires, women’s and children’s wishes,

  Chases in arras, gilded emptiness,

  Shadows well mounted, dreams in a career,

  Embroider’d lies, nothing between two dishes; 5

  These are the pleasures here.

  True earnest sorrows, rooted miseries,

  Anguish in grain, vexations ripe and blown,

  Sure-footed griefs, solid calamities,

  Plain demonstrations, evident and clear, 10

  Fetching their proofs ev’n from the very bone;

  These are the sorrows here.

  But O the folly of distracted men,

  Who griefs in earnest, joys in jest pursue;

  Preferring, like brute beasts, a loathsome den 15

  Before a court, ev’n that above so clear,

  Where are no sorrows, but delights more true,

  Than miseries are here!

  THE SON.

  Let foreign nations of their language boast,

  What fine variety each tongue affords:

  I like our language, as our men and coast:

  Who cannot dress it well, want wit, not words.

  How neatly do we give one only name 5

  To parents’ issue and the sun’s bright star!

  A son is light and fruit; a fruitful flame

  Chasing the father’s dimness, carri’d far

  From the first man in th’ East, to fresh and new

  Western discov’ries of posterity. 10

  So in one word our Lord’s humility

  We turn upon him in a sense most true:

  For what Christ once in humbleness began,

  We him in glory call, The Son of Man.

  A TRUE HYMN.

  My joy, my life, my crown!

  My heart was meaning all the day,

  Somewhat it fain would say:

  And still it runneth mutt’ring up and down

  With only this, My joy, my life, my crown. 5

  Yet slight not these few words:

  If truly said, they may take part

  Among the best in art.

  The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,

  Is, when the soul unto the lines accords. 10

  He who craves all the mind,

  And all the soul, and strength, and time,

  If the words only rhyme,

  Justly complains, that somewhat is behind

  To make his verse, or write a hymn in kind. 15

  Whereas if th’ heart be moved,

  Although the verse be somewhat scant,

  God doth supply the want.

  As when th’ heart says (sighing to be approved)

  O, could I love! and stops: God writeth, Loved. 20

  THE ANSWER.

  My comforts drop and melt away like snow:

  I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,

  Which my fierce youth did bandy, fall and flow

  Like leaves about me: or like summer friends,

  Flies of estates and sunshine. But to all, 5

  Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking,

  But in my prosecutions slack and small;

  As a young exhalation, newly waking,

  Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky;

  But cooling by the way, grows pursy and slow, 10

  And settling to a cloud, doth live and die

  In that dark state of tears: to all, that so

  Show me, and set me, I have one reply,

  Which they that know the rest, know more than I.

  A DIALOGUE-ANTHEM.

  Christian. Death.

  Chr. Alas, poor Death, where is thy glory?

  Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting?

  Dea. Alas poor mortal, void of story,

  Go spell and read how I have kill’d thy King.

  Chr. Poor Death! and who was hurt thereby? 5

  Thy curse being laid on him, makes thee accurst.

  Dea. Let losers talk: yet thou shalt die;

  These arms shall crush thee.

  Chr. Spare not, do thy worst. I shall be one day better than before:

  Thou so much worse, that thou shalt be no more. 10

  THE WATER-COURSE.

  Thou who dost dwell and linger here below,

  Since the condition of this world is frail,

  Where of all plants afflictions soonest grow;

  If troubles overtake thee, do not wail:

  For who can look for less, that loveth life/strife 5

  But rather turn the pipe, and water’s course

  To serve thy sins, and furnish thee with store

  Of sov’reign tears, springing from true remorse:

  That so in pureness thou mayst him adore,

  Who gives to man, as he sees fit salvation/damnation. 10

  SELF-CONDEMNATION.

  Thou who condemnest Jewish hate,

  For choosing Barabbas a murderer

  Before the Lord of Glory;

  Look back upon thine own estate,

  Call home thine eye (that busy wanderer): 5

  That choice may be thy story.

  He that doth love,
and love amiss

  This world’s delights before true Christian joy,

  Hath made a Jewish choice:

  The world an ancient murderer is; 10

  Thousands of souls it hath and doth destroy

  With her enchanting voice.

  He that hath made a sorry wedding

  Between his soul and gold, and hath preferr’d

  False gain before the true, 15

  Hath done what he condemns in reading:

  For he hath sold for money his dear Lord,

  And is a Judas-Jew.

  Thus we prevent the last great day,

  And judge our selves. That light, which sin and passion 20

  Did before dim and choke,

  When once those snuffs are ta’en away,

  Shines bright and clear, ev’n unto condemnation,

  Without excuse or cloak.

  BITTER-SWEET.

  Ah my dear angry Lord,

  Since thou dost love, yet strike;

  Cast down, yet help afford;

  Sure I will do the like.

  I will complain, yet praise; 5

  I will bewail, approve:

  And all my sour-sweet days

  I will lament, and love.

  THE GLANCE.

  When first thy sweet and gracious eye

  Vouchsaf’d ev’n in the midst of youth and night

  To look upon me, who before did lie

  Welt’ring in sin;

  I felt a sug’red strange delight, 5

  Passing all cordials made by any art,

  Bedew, embalm, and overrun my heart,

  And take it in.

  Since that time many a bitter storm

  My soul hath felt, ev’n able to destroy, 10

  Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm

  His swing and sway:

  But still thy sweet original joy

  Sprung from thine eye, did work within my soul,

  And surging griefs, when they grew bold, control, 15

  And got the day.

  If thy first glance so powerful be,

  A mirth but open’d and seal’d up again;

  What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see

  Thy full-eyed love! 20

  When thou shalt look us out of pain,

  And one aspect of thine spend in delight

  More than a thousand suns disburse in light,

  In heav’n above.

  THE 23D PSALM.

  The God of love my shepherd is,

  And he that doth me feed:

  While he is mine, and I am his,

  What can I want or need?

  He leads me to the tender grass, 5

  Where I both feed and rest;