George Herbert

My God, I heard this day That none doth build a stately habitation But he that means to dwell therein. What house more stately hath there been, Or can be, than is man, to whose creation All things are in decay? For man is ev'ry thing, And more: he is a tree, yet bears more fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be, more; Reason and speech we only bring; Parrots may thank us if they are not mute, They go upon the score. Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one limb to another, And all to all the world besides; Each part may call the furthest brother, For head with foot hath private amity, And both with moons and tides. Nothing hath got so far But man hath caught and kept it as his prey; His eyes dismount the highest star; He is in little all the sphere; Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Find their acquaintance there. For us the winds do blow, The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see but means our good, As our delight, or as our treasure; The whole is either our cupboard of food, Or cabinet of pleasure. The stars have us to bed; Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws; Music and light attend our head; All things unto our flesh are kind In their descent and being; to our mind In their ascent and cause. Each thing is full of duty; Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat; Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty? Then how are all things neat! More servants wait on man Than he'll take notice of; in ev'ry path He treads down that which doth befriend him, When sickness makes him pale and wan. Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him. Since then, my God, thou hast So brave a palace built, O dwell in it, That it may dwell with thee at last! Till then, afford us so much wit, That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee, And both thy servants be.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back compare Song of Solomon 5:6. "I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had with drawen himself" (Authorized Version, 1611). "Bade" is past tense of "bid," and in Herbert's time was pronounced like "bad." Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack slack hesitant. Compare Herbert's use of the word in his poem The Church-Porch: "Who keeps no guard upon himself, is slack, / And rots to nothing at the next great thaw." (Perirrhanterium24, lines 139-140) From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing. If I lacked any thing. echoes a version of Psalm 23, which begins: "The Lorde is my shepehearde: therfore can I lack nothing" (Psalms in the Version of the Great Bible, 1539) A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind unkind undutiful. , ungrateful? Ah my dear Ah my dear Hopkins adopts this phrase in "The Windhover". As Norman H. MacKenzie notes, "Hopkins as an undergraduate was strongly attracted to George Herbert, an anglican divine and poet, and traces of that influence can be found throughout his writings". , I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marred marred to mar: "to do fatal or destructive bodily harm" (OED, 4a) them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve I will serve compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest." . You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest." So I did sit and eat. So I did sit and eat. compare Luke 12:37. "Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he commeth, shall find watching: Verily, I say unto you, That he shall gird himself, and make them to sit downe to meat, and will come foorth and serve them." (Authorized Version, 1611) Compare also to the second stanza of Herbert's poem "Faith": "Hungry I was, and had no meat: / I did conceit a most delicious feast; / I had it straight, and did as truly eat, / As ever did a welcome guest."

Immortal Heat, O let Thy greater flame Attract the lesser to it; let those fires Which shall consume the world first make it tame, And kindle in our hearts such true desires. As may consume our lusts, and make Thee way: Then shall our hearts pant Thee, then shall our brain All her invention on Thine altar lay, And there in hymns send back Thy fire again. Our eyes shall see Thee, which before saw dust, Dust blown by wit, till that they both were blind: Thou shalt recover all Thy goods in kind, Who wert disseized by usurping lust: All knees shall bow to Thee; all wits shall rise, And praise Him Who did make and mend our eyes.

Immortal Love, author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade, How hath man parcel'd out Thy glorious name, And thrown it on that dust which Thou hast made, While mortal love doth all the title gain! Which siding with Invention, they together Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain, (Thy workmanship) and give Thee share in neither. Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit; The world is theirs, they two play out the game, Thou standing by: and though Thy glorious name Wrought our deliverance from th' infernal pit, Who sings Thy praise? Only a scarf or glove Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.

I made a posy, while the day ran by: “Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band.” But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away, And withered in my hand. My hand was next to them, and then my heart; I took, without more thinking, in good part Time’s gentle admonition; Who did so sweetly death’s sad taste convey, Making my mind to smell my fatal day, Yet, sug’ring the suspicion. Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament, And after death for cures. I follow straight without complaints or grief, Since, if my scent be good, I care not if It be as short as yours.

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 no verse, except enchanted groves And sudden arbours 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.

I threaten'd to observe the strict decree Of my dear God with all my power and might; But I was told by one it could not be; Yet I might trust in God to be my light. "Then will I trust," said I, "in Him alone." "Nay, e'en to trust in Him was also His: We must confess that nothing is our own." "Then I confess that He my succour is." "But to have nought is ours, not to confess That we have nought." I stood amaz'd at this, Much troubled, till I heard a friend express That all things were more ours by being His; What Adam had, and forfeited for all, Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark: White is their color, and behold my head. But must they have my brain? Must they dispark Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred? Must dullness turn me to a clod? Yet have they left me,Thou art still my God. Good men ye be, to leave me my best room, Ev’n all my heart, and what is lodgèd there: I pass not, I, what of the rest become, So Thou art still my God be out of fear. He will be pleasèd with that ditty: And if I please him, I write fine and witty. Farewell sweet phrases, lovely metaphors. But will ye leave me thus? When ye before Of stews and brothels only knew the doors, Then did I wash you with my tears, and more, Brought you to church well dressed and clad: My God must have my best, ev’n all I had. Lovely enchanting language, sugar-cane, Honey of roses, wither wilt thou fly? Hath some fond lover ’ticed thee to thy bane? And wilt thou leave the church and love a sty? Fie, thou wilt soil thy broidered coat, And hurt thyself, and him that sings the note. Let foolish lovers, if they will love dung, With canvas, not with arras, clothe their shame: Let folly speak in her own native tongue. True beauty dwells on high: ours is a flame But borrowed thence to light us thither. Beauty and beauteous words should go together. Yet if you go, I pass not; take your way: For Thou art still my God is all that ye Perhaps with more embellishment can say. Go, birds of spring: let winter have his fee; Let a bleak paleness chalk the door, So all within be livelier than before.

How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shriveled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart 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, Killing and quickening, 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: Thy word is all, if we could spell. Oh that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither; 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 heaven were mine own, 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? 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. Oh, my only light, It cannot be 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, Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

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 run into an action; But still to make Thee prepossest, And give it his perfection. A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye; Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, And then the heav'n espy. 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 drudgery 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.