Following some reference to and discussion of George Herbert (not to be confused with his older brother, the poet Edward Herbert) over on "General Talk" in an interesting thread started by nyctom, Alicia suggested I post some of Herbert’s poems here.
As I noted on Tom’s original thread, one of several remarkable aspects of Herbert’s 1633 collection
The Temple is that he seems to have invented a new stanzaic pattern for each poem, a stunning technical achievement.
Here are three poems, two of them, I think, well known, which show Herbert writing in lines of various lengths. I have modernised the spelling but left the punctuation unchanged.
It is worth noting that these poems should be printed with suitable indentations: their inventiveness is more obvious, and they are easier to read. Given the complex patterns employed in these poems, however, I have not attempted to replicate this feature here. Those who are interested can see them set out properly at the site mentioned below.
The first, typical of Herbert’s formal practice in such mixed-line verses, is a dialogue between Herbert and his at first unrecognised Christ.
Love 3
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
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 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.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
The second poem, "The Collar" is striking because here Herbert abandons repeating stanzas and instead writes irregularly in lines of various lengths, a device which embodies metrically the fierce rebelliousness of tone evident in this dialogue with his God.
The Collar
I struck the board, and cried, No more.
I will abroad.
What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away; take heed:
I will abroad.
Call in thy death’s head there: tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I raved and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child:
And I replied, My Lord.
The third poem, "Denial", one which is much less well-known, I have included not only because it shows once again Herbert’s skill in stanzas of mixed line-lengths but also because it illustrates another aspect of writing, his inventive use of rhyme, or rather, here, his avoidance of rhyme; for the last line of each stanza is unrhymed until, in the final stanza, in a formal enactment of its own theme, the rhyme pattern is at last fulfilled.
Denial
When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears;
Then was my heart broken, as was my verse;
My breast was full of fears
And disorder:
My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow,
Did fly asunder:
Each took his way; some would to pleasures go,
Some to the wars and thunder
Of alarms.
As good go any where, they say,
As to benumb
Both knees and heart, in crying night and day,
Come, come, my God, O come,
But no hearing.
O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue
To cry to thee,
And then not hear it crying! all day long
My heart was in my knee,
But no hearing.
Therefore my soul lay out of sight,
Untuned, unstrung:
My feeble spirit, unable to look right,
Like a nipped blossom, hung
Discontented.
O cheer and tune my heartless breast,
Defer no time;
That so thy favours granting my request,
They and my mind may chime,
And mend my rhyme.
George Herbert’s poems can be found at these sites:
http://home.ptd.net/~GHerbert/PoemTOC.html http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/herbbib.htm
Clive Watkins
[This message has been edited by Clive Watkins (edited December 14, 2001).]