Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my mind in frame: 10
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.
Yea, in death’s shady black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me; and thy rod 15
To guide, thy staff to bear.
Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev’n in my enemies’ sight:
My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night. 20
Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.
MARY MAGDALENE.
When blessed Mary wip’d her Saviour’s feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before)
And wore them for a jewel on her head,
Showing his steps should be the street,
Wherein she thenceforth evermore 5
With pensive humbleness would live and tread:
She being stain’d herself, why did she strive
To make him clean, who could not be defil’d?
Why kept she not her tears for her own faults,
And not his feet? Though we could dive 10
In tears like seas, our sins are pil’d
Deeper than they, in words, and works, and thoughts.
Dear soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and deign
To bear her filth; and that her sins did dash
Ev’n God himself: wherefore she was not loth, 15
As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash:
And yet in washing one, she washed both.
AARON.
Holiness on the head,
Light and perfections on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To lead them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons drest. 5
Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest.
Poor priest thus am I drest. 10
Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
Another music, making live not dead,
Without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well drest. 15
Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me ev’n dead;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new drest. 20
So holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest),
Come people; Aaron’s drest. 25
THE ODOUR. 2 COR. 2:15
How sweetly doth My Master sound! My Master!
As Ambergris leaves a rich scent
Unto the taster:
So do these words a sweet content,
An oriental fragrancy, My Master. 5
With these all day I do perfume my mind,
My mind ev’n thrust into them both:
That I might find
What cordials make this curious broth,
This broth of smells, that feeds and fats my mind. 10
My Master, shall I speak? O that to thee
My servant were a little so,
As flesh may be;
That these two words might creep and grow
To some degree of spiciness to thee! 15
Then should the Pomander, which was before
A speaking sweet, mend by reflection,
And tell me more:
For pardon of my imperfection
Would warm and work it sweeter than before. 20
For when My Master, which alone is sweet,
And ev’n in my unworthiness pleasing,
Shall call and meet,
My servant, as thee not displeasing,
That call is but the breathing of the sweet. 25
This breathing would with gains by sweet’ning me
(As sweet things traffic when they meet)
Return to thee.
And so this new commerce and sweet
Should all my life employ and busy me. 30
THE FOIL.
If we could see below
The sphere of virtue, and each shining grace
As plainly as that above doth show;
This were the better sky, the brighter place.
God hath made stars the foil 5
To set off virtues; griefs to set off sinning:
Yet in this wretched world we toil,
As if grief were not foul, nor virtue winning.
THE FORERUNNERS.
The harbingers are come. See, see their mark;
White is their colour, 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? 5
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. 10
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, 15
Then did I wash you with my tears, and more,
Brought you to Church well drest and clad:
My God must have my best, ev’n all I had.
Lovely enchanting language, sugar-cane,
Honey of roses, whither wilt thou fly? 20
Hath some fond lover ‘tic’d thee to thy bane?
And wilt thou leave the Church, and love a sty?
Fie, thou wilt soil thy broider’d coat,
And hurt thyself, and him that sings the note.
Let foolish lovers, if they will love dung, 25
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 borrow’d thence to light us thither.
Beauty and beauteous words should go together. 30
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, 35
So all within be livelier than before.
THE ROSE.
Press me not to take more pleasure
In this world of sug’red lies,
And to use a larger measure
Than my strict, yet welcome size.
First, there is no pleasure here: 5
Colour’d griefs indeed there are,
Blushing woes, that look as clear
As if they could beauty spare.
Or if such deceits there be,
Such delights I meant to say; 10
There are no such things to me,
Who have pass’d my right away.
But I will not much oppose
Unto what you now advise:
Only take this gentle rose, 15
And therein my answer lies.
What is fairer than a rose?
What is sweeter? yet it purgeth.
Purgings enmity disclose,
Enmity forbearance urgeth. 20
If then all that worldlings prize
Be contracted to a rose;
Sweetly there indeed it
lies,
But it biteth in the close.
So this flower doth judge and sentence 25
Worldly joys to be a scourge:
For they all produce repentance,
And repentance is a purge.
But I health, not physic choose:
Only though I you oppose, 30
Say that fairly I refuse,
For my answer is a rose.
DISCIPLINE.
Throw away thy rod,
Throw away thy wrath:
O my God,
Take the gentle path.
For my heart’s desire 5
Unto thine is bent:
I aspire
To a full consent.
Not a word or look
I affect to own, 10
But by book,
And thy book alone.
Though I fail, I weep:
Though I halt in pace,
Yet I creep 15
To the throne of grace.
Then let wrath remove;
Love will do the deed:
For with love
Stony hearts will bleed. 20
Love is swift of foot;
Love’s a man of war,
And can shoot,
And can hit from far.
Who can scape his bow? 25
That which wrought on thee,
Brought thee low,
Needs must work on me.
Throw away thy rod;
Though man frailties hath, 30
Thou art God:
Throw away thy wrath.
THE INVITATION.
Come ye hither All, whose taste
Is your waste;
Save your cost, and mend your fare.
God is here prepar’d and drest,
And the feast, 5
God, in whom all dainties are.
Come ye hither all, whom wine
Doth define,
Naming you not to your good:
Weep what ye have drunk amiss, 10
And drink this,
Which before ye drink is blood.
Come ye hither all, whom pain
Doth arraign,
Bringing all your sins to sight: 15
Taste and fear not: God is here
In this cheer,
And on sin doth cast the fright.
Come ye hither all, whom joy
Doth destroy, 20
While ye graze without your bounds:
Here is joy that drowneth quite
Your delight,
As a flood the lower grounds.
Come ye hither all, whose love 25
Is your dove,
And exalts you to the sky:
Here is love, which having breath
Ev’n in death,
After death can never die. 30
Lord I have invited all,
And I shall
Still invite, still call to thee:
For it seems but just and right
In my sight, 35
Where is All, there All should be.
THE BANQUET.
Welcome sweet and sacred cheer,
Welcome dear;
With me, in me, live and dwell:
For thy neatness passeth sight,
Thy delight 5
Passeth tongue to taste or tell.
O what sweetness from the bowl
Fills my soul,
Such as is, and makes divine!
Is some star (fled from the sphere) 10
Melted there,
As we sugar melt in wine?
Or hath sweetness in the bread
Made a head
To subdue the smell of sin; 15
Flowers, and gums, and powders giving
All their living,
Lest the enemy should win?
Doubtless, neither star nor flower
Hath the power, 20
Such a sweetness to impart:
Only God, who gives perfumes,
Flesh assumes,
And with it perfumes my heart.
But as Pomanders and wood 25
Still are good,
Yet being bruis’d are better scented:
God, to show how far his love
Could improve,
Here, as broken, is presented. 30
When I had forgot my birth,
And on earth
In delights of earth was drown’d;
God took blood, and needs would be
Spilt with me, 35
And so found me on the ground.
Having rais’d me to look up,
In a cup
Sweetly he doth meet my taste.
But I still being low and short, 40
Far from court,
Wine becomes a wing at last.
For with it alone I fly
To the sky:
Where I wipe mine eyes, and see 45
What I seek, for what I sue;
Him I view,
Who hath done so much for me.
Let the wonder of this pity
Be my ditty, 50
And take up my lines and life:
Harken under pain of death,
Hands and breath;
Strive in this, and love the strife.
THE POSY.
Let wits contest,
And with their words and posies windows fill:
Less than the least
Of all thy mercies, is my posy still.
This on my ring, 5
This by my picture, in my book I write:
Whether I sing,
Or say, or dictate, this is my delight.
Invention rest,
Comparisons go play, wit use thy will: 10
Less than the least
Of all God’s mercies, is my posy still.
A PARODY.
Soul’s joy, when thou art gone,
And I alone,
Which cannot be,
Because thou dost abide with me,
And I depend on thee; 5
Yet when thou dost suppress
The cheerfulness
Of thy abode,
And in my powers not stir abroad,
But leave me to my load: 10
O what a damp and shade
Doth me invade!
No stormy night
Can so afflict or so affright,
As thy eclipsed light. 15
Ah Lord! do not withdraw,
Lest want of awe
Make Sin appear;
And when thou dost but shine less clear,
Say, that thou art not here. 20
And then what life I have,
While Sin doth rave,
And falsely boast,
That I may seek, but thou art lost;
Thou and alone thou know’st. 25
O what a deadly cold
Doth me infold!
I half believe,
That Sin says true: but while I grieve,
Thou com’st and dost relieve. 30
THE ELIXIR.
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, 5
To run into an action;
But still to make thee prepossess’d,
And give it his perfection.
A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye; 10
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) 15
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. 20
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch and own
C
annot for less be told.
A WREATH.
A wreathèd garland of deservèd praise,
Of praise deservèd, unto thee I give,
I give to thee, who knowest all my ways,
My crooked winding ways, wherein I live,
Wherein I die, not live: for life is straight, 5
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,
To thee, who art more far above deceit,
Than deceit seems above simplicity.
Give me simplicity, that I may live,
So live and like, that I may know thy ways, 10
Know them and practise them: then shall I give
For this poor wreath, give thee a crown of praise.
DEATH.
Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
Nothing but bones,
The sad effect of sadder groans:
Thy mouth was open, but thou couldst not sing.
For we consider’d thee as at some six 5
Or ten years hence,
After the loss of life and sense,
Flesh being turn’d to dust, and bones to sticks.
We look’d on this side of thee, shooting short;
Where we did find 10
The shells of fledge souls left behind,
Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort.
But since our Saviour’s death did put some blood
Into thy face;
Thou art grown fair and full of grace, 15
Much in request, much sought for, as a good.
For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
As at doomsday;
When souls shall wear their new array,
And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad. 20
Therefore we can go die as sleep, and trust
Half that we have
Unto an honest faithful grave;
Making our pillows either down, or dust.
DOOMSDAY.
Come away,
Make no delay.
Summon all the dust to rise,
Till it stir, and rub the eyes;
While this member jogs the other, 5
Each one whisp’ring, Live you brother?
Come away,
Make this the day.
Dust, alas, no music feels,
But thy trumpet: then it kneels, 10
As peculiar notes and strains
Cure Tarantula’s raging pains.
Come away,
O make no stay!
Let the graves make their confession, 15
Lest at length they plead possession:
Flesh’s stubbornness may have
Read that lesson to the grave.
Come away,
Thy flock doth stray. 20
Some to winds their body lend,
And in them may drown a friend:
Some in noisome vapours grow
George Herbert- Collected Poetical Works Page 16
