George Herbert
George Herbert (April 3, 1593 – March 1, 1633) was an English poet, orator and a priest in the Church of England. Despite living for only 40 years, his stock as a poet has risen and risen. The poems of his final years, written while as a clergyman at Bemerton near Salisbury, are like nothing else in literature. They combine a profound spirituality with a restless experimentation. Their language remains fresh and inspiring today. Herbert balanced a secular career with a life of theological contemplation, and the delicate balance (and occasional struggle) of such a life is reflected in the poetry he produced during a life spent in service of the Anglican Church.
Life
Herbert was born in 1593, the son of Sir Richard and Magdalen Herbert. Herbert's family was wealthy, eminent, intellectual and of the noble class. Herbert's older brother was an English Lord. Herbert's family was deeply involved in the currents of English literature and poetry, and often had prominent poets as guests at their estate. Herbert's mother, in particular, was a patron and friend of John Donne and the Metaphysical poets. Herbert's brother Edward (after being knighted by James I) was a poet and philosopher who tried to reconcile Christianity with rationalism who is often referred to as the father of English deism.
Herbert himself first distinguished himself in 1610 at the age of 17 when, as a New Year's present to his mother he sent a pair of sonnets, (titled, simply, A Sonnet) describing how the love directed towards God was more fulfilling than love directed towards a woman. These juvenile poems are notable for their content, which foreshadows the devotional poetry of Herbert's maturity, as well as for their form, modeled after the poetry of Donne through its combination of exagerrated metaphors expressed through ordinary language. The sonnets are brief enough that they can be quoted in full:
- 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
- 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 fame,
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
While matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert took the post of public orator of Cambridge, a position to which he was probably appointed because of his poetic skill. During his time at Cambridge Herbert published his first poems, a pair of elegies written in Latin mourning the death of Prince Henry. Herbert described his positin as public orator as being "the best place in the university". The two previous orators had risen to high position of influence in English society, and Herbert initially hoped to do the same. In 1624 Herbert became a Member of Parliament, and a political career seemed to just be beginning. Herbert himself indicated in private correspondence that he hoped to attain an appointment to the court of James I. However, in 1625 James died, and two other patrons who had shown Herbert political favor died shortly thereafter. Turning away from a life in politics, Herbert turned towards the Church, and was ordained as a priest.
In 1630 Herbert became a rector in the small village of Bemerton. During this time he became close friends with Nicholas Ferrar, a former resident of the village who had founded a religious community a few miles away in the town of Little Gidding. (A name, coincidentally, now connected with one of the sections of T.S. Eliot's epic poem Four Quartets, in which Eliot was directly alluding to Ferrar's community and the Metaphysical poets.) During this time Herbert devoted himself to his parish and to the work of repairing and expanding the village's church. He wrote poems continuously through this time, including all of the great poems for which he would be remembered, but never attempted to publish any of them.
Suffering from failing health only 3 years after having taken up the priesthood, Herbert, on his deathbed, gave a collection of his poems to Farrar, asking that they be published if they might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul"; and otherwise, to burn them. Herbert described the poems as "a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom." Farrar had them published immediately under the title The Temple: Sacred Poems And Private Ejaculations, better known today as simply The Temple. By 1680, Herbert's poems were so popular they had gone through over thirteen printings.
Poetry
Poetic Excerpts
Denial
"When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears,
Then waas 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 anywhere, they say,
As to benumb
Both knees and heart in crying night and day,
'Come, come, my God, O come!'
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 favors granting my request,
They and my mind may chime,
And mend my rhyme
Additional Quotes
- "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 would not see."
See also
- The Book of Sand
External links
- George Herbert at Luminarium
- George Herbert Bio and Poems
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