That thy flesh hath lost his food,
And thy Cross is common wood. 10
Choke him, let him say no more,
But reserve his breath in store,
Till thy conquests and his fall
Make his sighs to use it all,
And then bargain with the wind 15
To discharge what is behind.
Blessèd be God alone,
Thrice blessèd Three in One.
FINIS.
POEMS FROM IZAAK WALTON’S THE LIFE OF MR GEORGE HERBERT
SONNETS.
I.
My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of Martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth poetry
Wear Venus’ livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not Sonnets made of thee? and lays 5
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?
Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the same, 10
Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name!
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might
Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose
Than that, which one day Worms may chance refuse?
II.
Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry
Oceans of Ink; for, as the Deluge did
Cover the Earth, so doth thy Majesty:
Each Cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use. 5
Roses and Lilies speak thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse.
Why should I Women’s eyes for Crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind,
Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go 10
To praise, and on thee Lord, some Ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth; when Lord, in thee
The beauty lies in the discovery.
TO MY SUCCESSOR.
If thou chance for to find
A new House to thy mind,
And built without thy Cost:
Be good to the Poor,
As God gives thee store, 5
And then my Labour’s not lost.
MISCELLANEOUS ENGLISH POEMS
THE HOLY COMMUNION.
O gracious Lord, how shall I know
Whether in these gifts thou be so
As thou art ev’rywhere;
Or rather so, as thou alone
Tak’st all the lodging, leaving none 5
For thy poor creature there?
First I am sure, whether bread stay
Or whether bread do fly away
Concerneth bread not me.
But that both thou, and all thy train 10
Be there, to thy truth, and my gain
Concerneth me and Thee.
And if in coming to thy foes
Thou dost come first to them, that shows
The haste of thy good will. 15
Or if that thou two stations makèst
In Bread and me, the way thou takèst
Is more, but for me still.
Then of this also I am sure
That thou didst all those pains endure 20
To’abolish Sin, not Wheat.
Creatures are good, and have their place;
Sin only, which did all deface,
Thou drivest from his seat.
I could believe an Impanation 25
At the rate of an Incarnation
If thou hadst died for bread.
But which made my soul to die,
My flesh, and fleshly villainy,
That also made thee dead. 30
That flesh is there, mine eyes deny:
And what should flesh but flesh descry,
The noblest sense of five.
If glorious bodies pass the sight,
Shall they be food and strength, and might 35
Even there, where they deceive?
Into my soul this cannot pass;
Flesh (though exalted) keeps his grass
And cannot turn to soul.
Bodies and Minds are different Spheres, 40
Nor can they change their bounds and meres,
But keep a constant pole.
This gift of all gifts is the best,
Thy flesh the least that I request.
Thou took’st that pledge from me: 45
Give me not that I had before,
Or give me that, so I have more;
My God, give me all Thee.
LOVE.
Thou art too hard for me in Love:
There is no dealing with thee in that Art:
That is thy Masterpiece I see.
When I contrive and plot to prove
Something that may be conquest on my part 5
Thou still, O Lord, outstrippest me.
Sometimes, when as I wash, I say,
And shrewdly, as I think, Lord wash my soul
More spotted than my flesh can be.
But then there comes into my way 10
Thy ancient baptism, which when I was foul
And knew it not, yet cleansèd me.
I took a time when thou didst sleep,
Great waves of trouble combating my breast:
I thought it brave to praise thee then, 15
Yet then I found, that thou didst creep
Into my heart with joy, giving more rest
Than flesh did lend thee back again.
Let me but once the conquest have
Upon the matter, ‘twill thy conquest prove: 20
If thou subdue mortality
Thou do’st no more, than doth the grave:
Whereas if I o’ercome thee and thy Love
Hell, Death and Devil come short of me.
TRINITY SUNDAY.
He that is one,
Is none.
Two reacheth thee
In some degree.
Nature and Grace 5
With Glory may attain thy Face.
Steel and a flint strike fire,
Wit and desire
Never to thee aspire,
Except life catch and hold those fast. 10
That which belief
Did not confess in the first Thief
His fall can tell,
From Heaven, through Earth, to Hell.
Let two of those alone 15
To them that fall,
Who God and Saints and Angels lose at last.
He that has one,
Has all.
EVEN-SONG.
The Day is spent, and hath his will on me:
I and the Sun have run our races,
I went the slower, yet more paces,
For I decay, not he.
Lord make my losses up, and set me free: 5
That I who cannot now by day
Look on his daring brightness, may
Shine then more bright than he.
If thou defer this light, then shadow me:
Lest that the Night, earth’s gloomy shade, 10
Fouling her nest, my earth invade,
As if shades knew not Thee.
But Thou art Light and darkness both together:
If that be dark we cannot see,
The sun is darker than a Tree, 15
And thou more dark than either.
Yet Thou art not so dark, since I know this,
But that my darkness may touch thine,
And hope, that may teach it to shine,
Since Light thy Darkness is. 20
O let my Soul, whose keys I must deliver
Into the hands of senseless Dreams
Which know not thee, suck in thy beams
And wake with thee for ever.
THE KNELL.
The Bell doth toll:
Lord help thy servant whose perplexèd Soul
Doth wishly look
On either hand
And sometimes offers, sometimes makes a stand 5
Struggling on th’ hook.
Now is the season,
Now the great combat of our flesh and reason:
O help, my God!
See, they break in, 10
Disbanded humours, sorrows, troops of Sin,
Each with his rod.
Lord make thy Blood
Convert and colour all the other flood
And streams of grief, 15
That they may be
Juleps and Cordials when we call on thee
For some relief.
PERSEVERANCE.
My God, the poor expressions of my Love
Which warm these lines, and serve them up to thee
Are so, as for the present I did move,
Or rather as thou movèdst me.
But what shall issue, whether these my words 5
Shall help another, but my judgement be;
As a burst fowling-piece doth save the birds
But kill the man, is seal’d with thee.
For who can tell, though thou hast died to win
And wed my soul in glorious paradise; 10
Whether my many crimes and use of sin
May yet forbid the banns and bliss?
Only my soul hangs on thy promises
With face and hands clinging unto thy breast,
Clinging and crying, crying without cease, 15
Thou art my rock, thou art my rest.
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE L. CHANCELLOR BACON.
My Lord, a diamond to me you sent
And I to you a Blackamoor present.
Gifts speak their Givers. For as those Refractions,
Shining and sharp, point out your rare Perfections;
So by the Other, you may read in me 5
(Whom Scholar’s Habit and Obscurity
Hath soil’d with Black) the colour of my state,
Till your bright gift my darkness did abate.
Only, most noble Lord, shut not the door
Against this mean and humble Blackamoor. 10
Perhaps some other subject I had tried
But that my Ink was factious for this side.
A PARADOX. THAT THE SICK ARE IN BETTER STATE THAN THE WHOLE.
You who admire yourselves because
You neither groan nor weep,
And think it contrary to Nature’s laws
To want one ounce of sleep,
Your strong belief 5
Acquits yourselves, and gives the sick all grief.
Your state to ours is contrary;
That makes you think us poor,
So Black’moors think us foul, and we
Are quit with them, and more. 10
Nothing can see,
And judge of things but Mediocrity.
The sick are in themselves a State
Which health hath nought to do.
How know you that our tears proceed from woe 15
And not from better fate,
Since that mirth hath
Her waters also and desirèd Bath.
How know you that the sighs we send
From want of breath proceed, 20
Not from excess? and therefore we do spend
That which we do not need;
So trembling may
As well show inward warbling as decay.
Cease then to judge calamities 25
By outward form and show,
But view yourselves, and inward turn your eyes,
Then you shall fully know
That your estate
Is, of the two, the far more desperate. 30
You always fear to feel those smarts
Which we but sometimes prove:
Each little comfort much affects our hearts,
None but gross joys you move:
Why then confess 35
Your fears in number more, your joys are less.
Then for yourselves not us embrace
Plaints to bad fortune due:
For though you visit us, and wail our case,
We doubt much whether you 40
Come to our bed
To comfort us, or to be comforted.
TO THE LADY ELIZABETH QUEEN OF BOHEMIA.
Bright soul, of whom if any country known
Had worthy been, thou had’st not lost thine own:
No Earth can be thy Jointure, for the sun
And stars alone unto thy pitch do run
And pace of thy sweet virtues; only they 5
Are thy dominion. Those that rule in clay
Stick fast therein; but thy transcendent soul
Doth for two clods of earth ten spheres control.
And though stars shot from heaven lose their light,
Yet thy brave beams, excluded from their right, 10
Maintain their Lustre still, and shining clear,
Turn wat’rish Holland to a crystal sphere.
Methinks in that Dutch optic I do see
Thy curious virtues much more visibly.
There is thy best Throne. For afflictions are 15
A foil to set off worth, and make it rare.
Through that black tiffany thy virtues shine
Fairer and richer, now we know what’s thine
And what is fortune’s. Thou hast singled out
Sorrows and griefs, to fight with them a bout 20
At their own weapons, without pomp or state
To second thee against their cunning hate.
O, what a poor thing ’tis to be a Queen
When sceptres, state, Attendants are the screen
Betwixt us and the people; whenas glory 25
Lies round about us, to help out the story,
When all things pull and hale, that they may bring
A slow behaviour to the style of king,
When sense is made by comments! But that face,
Whose native beauty needs not dress or lace 30
To set it forth, and being stript of all,
Is self-sufficient to be the self-thrall
Of thousand hearts; that face doth figure thee
And show thy undivided Majesty,
Which misery cannot untwist, but rather 35
Adds to the union, as lights do gather
Splendours from darkness. So close sits the crown
About thy temples that the furious frown
Of opposition cannot place thee where
Thou should’st not be a Queen, and conquer there. 40
Yet hast thou more dominions: God doth give
Children for kingdoms to thee; they shall live
To conquer new ones, and shall share the frame
Of th’ universe, like as the winds, and name
The world anew. The sun shall never rise 45
But it shall spy some of thy victories.
Their hands shall clip the Eagle’s wings and chase
Those ravening Harpies, which peck at their face,
At once to Hell, without a baiting-while
At Purgatory, their enchanted Isle 50
And Paris garden. Then let their perfume
And Spanish saints, wisely laid up, presume
To deal with brimstone, that untamèd stench
Whose fire, like their malice, nought can quench.
But joys are stored for thee, thou shalt return 55
Laden with comfort thence, where now to mourn
Is thy chief government, to manage woe,
To curb some Rebel tears, which fain would flow,
Making a Head and spring against thy Reason.
This is thy empire yet, till better season 60
Call thee from out of that surrounded land,
That habitable sea and brinish strand,
Thy tears not needing. For that hand Divine,
Which mingles water with thy Rhenish wine,
Will pour full joys to thee, but dregs to those, 65
And meet their taste, who are thy bitter foes.
L’ENVOY.
Shine on, Majestic soul, abide
Like David’s tree, planted beside
The Flemish rivers: in the end,
Thy fruit shall with their drops contend;
Our God will surely dry those tears 5
Which now that moist land to thee bears.
Then shall thy Glory, fresh as flowers
In water kept, maugre the powers
Of Devil, Jesuit, and Spain,
From Holland sail into the Main. 10
Thence, wheeling on, it compass shall
This, our great Sublunary Ball
And with that Ring, thy fame shall wed
Eternity into one Bed.
The Latin and Greek Poems
GEORGII HERBERTI ANGLI
MUSAE RESPONSORIAE
AD ANDREAE MELVINI SCOTI ANTI-TAMI-CAMI-CATEGORIAM
AUGUSTISSIMO POTENTISSIMÓQUE MONARCHAE IACOBO, D. G. MAGNAE BRITANNIAE, FRANCIAE, & HIBERNIAE REGI, FIDEI DEFENSORI, &C. GEO. HERBERTUS.
Ecce recedentis foecundo in littore Nili
Sol generat populum luce fouente nouum.
Antè tui, CAESAR, quàm fulserat aura fauoris,
Nostrae etiam Musae vile fuere lutum:
Nunc adeò per te viuunt, vt repere possint, 5
Síntque ausae thalamum solis adire tui.
ILLUSTRISS. CELSISSIMÓQUE CAROLO, WALLIAE, & IUUENTUTIS PRINCIPI.
Qvam chartam tibi porrigo recentem,
Humanae decus atque apex iuuentae,
Obtutu placido benignus affles,
Namque aspectibus è tuis vel vnus
Mordaces tineas, nigrásque blattas, 5
Quas liuor mihi parturit, retundet,
Ceu, quas culta timet seges, pruinas
Nascentes radij fugant, vel acres
Tantùm dulcia leniunt catarrhos.
Sic o te (iuuenem, senémue) credat 10
Mors semper iuuenem, senem Britanni.
REUERENDISSIMO IN CHRISTO PATRI AC DOMINO, EPISCOPO VINTONIENSI, &C.
Sancte Pater, coeli custos, quo doctius vno
Terra nihil, nec quo sanctius astra vident;
Cùm mea futilibus numeris se verba viderent
Claudi, penè tuas praeteriêre fores.
Sed properè dextréque reduxit euntia sensus, 5
Ista docens soli scripta quadrare tibi.
PRO DISCIPLINA ECCLESIAE NOSTRAE EPIGRAMMATA APOLOGETICA.
I. AD REGEM INSTITUTI EPIGRAMMATICI RATIO.
George Herbert- Collected Poetical Works Page 18
