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Chapter - y*
MAJOR THEMES AND CONCERNS OF HERBERT'S POETRY
George Herbert has not written only secular poetry
in English and the main concern of his poetry is devotion to
God and religion.
Helen Gardner in her brilliant introduction
to The Metaphysical Poets says:
The strength of the religious poetry
of the metaphysical poets is that they
bring to their praise and prayer
and meditation so much experience
that is not in itself religious...
Herbert praying all day long 'but no
hearing';
or noting his own whitening
hair, or finding, after a night of
heaviness, joy in the morning.
-]
It is important to note that even the poetry of Herbert which
is all religious and devotional, has to get its strength
through dealing with secular and wordly theme.
The avowed simplicity of Herbert's poetry should not
lead us to believe that his poems lack the complexity of
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thought and experience.
In his poem "The Forerunners" that
complexity of thought and experience is visible.
While bid­
ding farewell to ’sweet phrases' and 'metaphors' in this poem,'
he says:
Yet if you go, I pass not; cake your way:
For, Thou art still my Hod, 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. 2
What Herbert rejects is that complexity which does not organi­
cally change the simple truth.
The poetic line 'Thou are still
my God' is more effective if it is expressed in a straight­
forward way.
But
Herbert's poetry knows the complexity of
human experience and also of the feeling of devotion.
He
believed in the revelations of the Holy Book implicitly but he
was also a poet of the seventeenth century and was aware of
the intellectual achievements of his age, and also of the history
of ideas.
The image of man, for example, had been undergoing
subtle changes during the course of time, and it is but natural
that a highly sensitive and learned poet like Herbert should
have been aware of it.
Herbert, we are told, had translated
the Latin work of Francis Bacon into English and also had paid
rich verse-tribute to him.
Naturally he was influenced by
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Bacon who was a scholar par excellence.
When Herbert
thought of Man, he had not only the Biblical image of man but
also of the Platonic idea of Man and the Renaissance idea of
Man.
The task before him was to reconcile these different
concepts of Man often in conflict with one-another.
This task
required not only poetic imagination but also intellectual
stamina.
A close study of his poem nMan,! would reveal a
synthesis of these images of Man and also the necessity of the
religious devotion for completing this human image.
"Man”:
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.
The first stanza describes the Biblical image of man but the
import is slightly different.
Man in his own image.
The Bible says that God created
The same idea is conveyed here.
Human
body is a stately mansion which God meant to dwell therein.
The human body, since it is the habitation of God, must be
noble and it is more lasting than other things of this universe.
The image of 'house1 employed to describe Man is an image
familiar to the Biblical environment and also presents the
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human body as a church in flesh and blood.
Body, as a temple
of God, is one of the stock-images of Indian devotional
poetry.
But Herbert by emphasizing the nobility of the human
body suggests that Man is a unique creation of God and also
a treasure of rich potentialities.
The second stanza conti­
nues the idea:
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 scor.^
The poem seems to explore the other more wonderful aspects
of human being hitherto unknown.
Man is a part of Nature and
also he is more than what Nature has bestowed upon him.
is both a creature and a creator.
he is the image of God.
idea of Man.
He
Perhaps, in this sense,
The third stanza introduces another
Here man is compared with symmetry.
proportionately united with the world.
Man is
The idea is Platonic
and was further developed during the Renaissance, a concept
which is reflected in Dante’s ’unity of being'.
The idea
though basically philosophical, was the motivating spirit of
all sciences.
The echo of this concept was found in the idea
of 'plastic virtue’ which was profound by Herbert's brother,
138
Herbert of Cherbury.
George Herbert in the last section
of his Latin work " In Mundi sympathian cum Christo" in
Passio Discerpta has used the principle of 'the harm only of
the world*.
It suggests that man does not die all alone.
The world at the same time dies with Him.
is one with His cross.
The whole machine
Jesus's sympathy with the whole world
and with all the living creatures is, thus, explained in
Platonic terms.
The Christian sensibility, in this way,
tried to assimilate the non-Christian classical ideas and
concepts.
Herbert's own sensibility which looks apparently
simple is extremely refined and sophisticated through educa­
tion.
From this point onwards, upto the last stanza, the
poem presents the description of the Renaissance man whose
potentialities seem to be infinite.
Man can conquer the
whole world and exact service from Nature.
Waters, when
united, form the sea and meant for nayigation of Man.
The
separated waters form the land fit for the habitation of man.
The rain waters give him food and the land waters give him
drink.
The impeccable logic behind all this phenomenon is
the principle of 'plastic virtue' or the 'harmony of the
world' which Man alone can comprehend
and put to use.
The
logic of this principle should lead us to science on the one
hand and also the tragic consequences of historical terror on
the other.
Shakespeare's Hamlet in his speech — "what a
piece of work is a man!""^ —
suggests the irony which is
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implicit in the meaninglessness of the infinite human capa­
city.
Herbert in the last stanza of this poem, however,
gives an altogether different twist to his logic.
The
Renaissance concept of Man should further alienate Man from
God.
But Herbert thinks in a different way:
Since then, my God, thou hast
So brave a palace built; 0 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.
Since the human body is a palace built by God, He is the
owner, the master of the human being.
But when the master
has deserted his house, his house becomes the master of the
world, absurdly enough, the world is the house of the ’house'.
The house can behave like a house only when the master dwells
in it and hence, Herbert's request to God is to come and live
in the human-house.
What is required on the part of man is
a radical change in his attitude.
The world may serve Man
but Man should not enjoy the services of the world like a
master.
On the contrary the services of the world should
remind him of his own services to God.
With an extra­
ordinary use of wit, the poem,.instead of drifting away from
God, drifts towards God.
But for the last stanza,
the whole
110
poem reads like a Renaissance or a Romantic poem glorifying
the human capacities.
Herbert, with a clever manifestation
of wit, examines the human situation from a different pers­
pective.
In the 'chain of being' Man is next only to God
and ironically, therefore, he can afford to forget God and
be a master of the whole world.
doing.
That is what he has been
The poem with a disarming sense of humility says that
it is much easier for Man to approach God than to play the
role of God in relation to other creatures.
Devotion to God
becomes a logical necessity in the interest of Man.
The five poems entitled "Affliction" I, II, III, IV
and V form one complex since the3r all deal with the problem
of suffering.
Herbert had a very uncertain health and
suffered sickness for a very long time.
This physical
suffering which he experienced very intimately forced him to
think about the nature and purpose of spiritual pain.
"Affliction - I" presents an intimate description
of Herbert's suffering.
The description is poignant and
moving since it is set against a more moving description of
his pleasant experiences at the beginning when the young
priest of the Bemerton Church was full of hopes:
At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesses;
I had my wish and way;
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My days were strawed with flow'rs and happiness;
There was no month hut May.
But with my years sorrow did twist and grow,
And made a party unawares for woe. 7
If the happiness is a gift of God, sorrow also could be
another gift.
The image which is implicit in the line —
'But with my years sorrow did twist and grow' —* is that of
a tree which grows and twists in an unexpected way.
The tree
image which is implicit here is fully developed in the last
but one stanza:
Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me
None of my books will show:
I read and sigh, and wish I were a tree;
For sure then I should grow
To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust
Her household to me, and I should be just. 8
The growth of a tree is natural and has its own purpose of
giving fruits, shade or shelter to a bird.
But the tree of
the personal sorrow which grows and twists does not seem to
have_any such purpose.
The mystery of sorrow remains unsolved
and the poem in the last stanza presents a resolution of the
poet to be meek and get strength from the meekness.
line of the poem:
The last
"Let me not love thee, if I love thee not"
Q
142
reflects the affliction of Herbert at its best.
He teaches
his soul to love God even in the state of suffering.
The
paradox in this statement reveals the strain on the part of
the poet to adhere to the discipline of human suffering.
In "Affliction - II" the experience of suffering has
grown more intense.
every hour.
The poet requests God not to kill him
Herbert prefers death at one stroke which could
relieve him of all pains.
The very intensity of this suffer­
ing reminds him of the suffering of Jesus, who suffers every
moment for the sake of others.
The experience of suffering
gives the poet a new insight into the suffering of Jesus and
brings him close to his God.
"Affliction - II":
Kill me not ev’ry day,
Thou Lord of life; since thy one death for me
Is more than all my deaths can be,
Though I in broken pay
Die over each hour of Methusalem’s stay.
If all men’s tears were let
Into one common sewer, sea, and brine;
What were they all, compared to thine?
Wherein if they were set,
They would discolour thy most bloody sweat.
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Thou art my grief alone,
Thou Lord conceal it not: and as thou art
All my delight, so all my smart;
Thy cross took up in one,
By way of imprest, all my future moan.
10
'Thou art my grief alone’ is again an ambiguous statement.
It means that the grief experienced by the poet is derived
from God and therefore, the poet tries to see God in his grief.
The poet's next request to God is not to hide His grief from
him.
God is all his joy and also his pain.
Jesus's suffering
on the cross is a kind of 'imprest' for the poet's future
suffering.
The monetary image of 'imprest' reveals the inte­
grity, honesty and the assurance of the divine transaction.
What is significant in this poem is
the poet with his God through suffering.
the closeness of
The suffering of
Jesus on the cross is both personal and impersonal, historical
and ahistorical.
Jesus, being the Son of God, could have
avoided the suffering but He took it upon Himself for the sake
of others.
The spiritual significance of sublime suffering of
Jesus is beyond human understanding.
Suffering, whether it is
personal or for the sake of others, has a chastening effect.
The poet has already realised it.
What he is trying to realise
in this poem is the fact that he should quietly suffer because
the pain of that suffering has already been felt by his Lord
on the Cross.
"Affliction - II" continues the same idea and shows
how human suffering derived from divine suffering can teach
the human soul to endure and also guide and govern the human
lif e:
My heart did heave, and there came forth, 0 God!
By that I knew that thou wast in the grief,
To guide and govern it to my relief,
Making a scepter of the rod:
Hadst thou not had thy part,
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart.
But since thy breath gave me both life and shape,
Thou know’st my tallies; and when there is assigned
So much breath to a sigh, what is then behind?
Or if some years with it escape,
The sigh then only is
A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss.
Thy life on earth was grief, and thou art still
Constant unto it, making it to be
A point of honour, now to grieve in me,
And in thy members suffers ill.
They who lament one cross,
Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss.
11
135
Divine suffering can instruct the human life by*making a
sceptre of the rod'.
Sceptre is a symbol of governing while
rod is a sign of punishment.
in this poem.
Herbert introduces a new idea
Human suffering is the sign of life.
Only the
living can suffer, the dead are free from suffering.
a sign of great hope.
behind?'
This is
'So much breath in a sigh, what is then
The answer to this question is one of hope and joy.
A heavy sigh of suffering, says the poet, a 'gale to bring me
sooner to my bliss’.
After the storm is over, there must be
peace either in the form of death or new life.
Helen Gardner
in her introduction to The Poems of George Herbert has quoted
Aldous Huxley who described the poetry of Herbert as the poetry
12
of "inner weather". Like an expert meteorologist, Herbert
here expects bright weather after the storm.
Now the poet has
realised that his Lord has made it 'a point of honour now to
grieve in me'.
The closeness to God through suffering is
almost complete.
"Affliction - IV" along with "Denial" and "Grief" is
one of the poems of terror that Herbert wrote describing the
dark night of his soul.
The devotee's soul is covered with
the darkness of despair when he finds himself "tortured in the
space betwixt this world and that of grace". ^
he suffers is both physical and spiritual.
The pain that
The poet finds
himself like a flower nipped and a lute unstrung.
on the verge of losing all hope:
He is almost
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0 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.
14
("Denial")
The power to communicate with God is given to man by God
Himself but the poet feels that it is not useful at all, since
God does not hear him crying.
This state of the dark night of
soul is inevitable in the human quest to reach God.
The poem
enacts the living experience of a devotee who is involved in a
desparate search.
"Affliction - 17" reflects Herbert's insight
in making comparison of two opposite processes.
The speaker
of the poem compares his fallen state with watering pots.
Watering pots give a new life and growth to the flowers while
his awareness of his moral fall grows trouble to his conscience.
Here, the comparison has been made between two extreme oppo­
sites, one leading towards fall while the other towards rise.
The ultimate meaning of the human affliction is reali­
sed only in the last poem, "Affliction - V":
My God, I read this day,
That planted Paradise was not so firm,
As xiras and is thy floating Ark; whose stay
And anchor thou art only, to confirm
14?
And strengthen it in ev'ry age,
When waves do rise, and tempests rage. 1 5
The paradox in the beginning of the stanza, that the floating
r
ark of Christ is more firm than the planted '.'Paradise, sheds
a lot of light on the truth of the Passion story.
The planted
Paradise or the Garden of Eden was corrupted while the floating
ship of Christ continues to resurrect the morally fallen.
is so because Christ is the stay and anchor of the ship.
It
The
weather image in the last line confirms the fact that Herbert's
poetry is the poetry of 'inner weather'.
What is more impor­
tant is the fact that the meaning of 'affliction' gets clari­
fied in this poem.
Both pleasure and grief, according to
Herbert, are derived from God:
At first we liv'd in pleasure;
Thine own delights thou didst to us impart;
When we grew wanton, thou didst use displeasure
To make us thine: yet that we might not
As we first did board with thee,
Now thou wouldst taste our miseries.
"16
The relation between man and God gets strengthened by the
exchange of joy and sorrow.
Man enjoys the pleasure imparted
to him by God and when man grows wanton, God punishes him by
giving displeasure.
Since man has boarded the ship captained
1418
by God, God also tastes the human miseries.
The relation
between man and God seems to be both divine and human. Joy
and grief are but baits -to attract the human to the divine.
Herbert’s poetry gets strengthened by the vision of the mutual
interdependence of man and God.
In the last stanza there is
a clear picture of affliction, a total poetic realization of
its nature and purpose:
Affliction then is ours;
We are the trees, whom shaking fastens more,
While blust'ring winds destroy the wanton bowers,
And ruffle all their curious knots and store.
My God, so temper joy and woe,
That thy bright beams may tame thy bow.
17
Affliction, though derived from God, is meant for man.
Afflictions come to him like wind which shakes the trees —
the ’wanton bowers'.
The image of ’tree’ here reminds the
same image which Herbert, used in "Affliction r I".
the meaning of that image is changed.
But here
The very change of
meaning suggests the development in the meaning.
All the five poems on affliction try to understand
the problem of human sorrow by examining several kinds of
affliction.
Herbert, who never enjoyed good health, suffered
sickness in 1610, 1615, 1623 and eventually contracted
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tuberculosis.
Apart from that, there were spiritual problems
like doubt and disbelief to deal with.
The most painful among
these problems was the lack of response from God, which: finds
expression in "Affliction - IV" and "Denial".
As several of his brothers and friends died young, it
is probable that Herbert was also aware of his own condition.
The poem, "The Cross" registers his anguish in religious terms.
Herbert in this poem describes his sorrow in clear and un­
equivocal words:
One ague dwelleth in my bones,
Another in my soul (the memory
What I would do for thee, if once my groans
Could be allowed for harmony):
I am all a weak disabled thing,
Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.
Herbert is assured of the usefulness of such sorrow.
18
In the
last stanza of the poem, Herbert accepts the sorrowful condi­
tion, but not without hope:
And yet since these thy contradictions
Are properly a cross felt by the Son,
With but four words, my words,'Thy will be done'. 19
150
Herbert reaches a state when the words of Christ become his
words, thus, completing the Christian way of the imitation
of Christ.
Herbert as a poet does not remain in the unchan­
geable condition of resignation.
As a mystic he understands
and also experiences the changeless state of resignation, but
as a poet he experiences variations of death and life.
In
the poem "The Flower” these line testify the variations:
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.... 20
A mystic who knows the supremecy of God’s will, and surrenders
his own will to God, need not write poetry at all.
The mystic
is interested in God and is mentally one with him.
But a poet
is interested in the changing moods of this world and nature.
That is why Herbert is interested in the process of budding
and blossoming and even in withering away.
To realise that
one is a flower and also feel assured that God has a garden
for us, where to bide, is the supreme triumph of poetic genius.
There is another poem by Herbert entitled "Confession”
which belongs to the same group of poems and yet stands apart.
The main theme again is affliction sent by God to discipline
man’s soul.
The poem is slightly different from the Affliction
poems in a way that it is more intellectual than the other
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lyrics.
Probably Herbert wrote it in a state of profound
calm, consciously trying to understand the effect of grief
on man's heart, and man’s desperate effort to counteract
the effect:
0 what a cunning guest
Is this same grief!
within my heart I made
Closets; and in them many a chest;
And, like a master in my trade,
In these chests, boxes; in each box, a till:
Yet grief knows all, and enters when he will.
21
The stanza presents a labyrinthine structure of the human
mind which, perhaps, is the most cunning when it comes to
the problem of self-withdrawal.
Eut the grief is more
cunning than the human mind and pervades the whole of the
inner environment.
The imagery of wooden furniture —
closets, chests, boxes, etc.
— suggests that it is man's
culture which is responsible for this cunningness, rather
than his nature.
The second stanza continues and elaborates
on the same imagery:
No screw, no piercer can
Into a piece of timber work and wind,
As God’s affliction into man,
When he a torture hath designed.
They are too subtle for the subtlest hearts;
And fall, like rheums, upon the tend'rest parts.
22
152
The human cunning is no match for the cunning of God's
affliction.
The image of a piece of timber which is seasoned
and quite strong, being helpless against the subtle engineer­
ing of grief, sheds light on the situation of man-God relation­
ship.
In this combat between God and man, it is man who
always gets defeated and his defeat is always certain.
The
human defeat which is suggested in this stanza changes the
situation of man-God relationship.
Man, whose cunningness
becomes useless is reduced to his own natural condition which
is vulnerable:
We are the earth; and they,
Like moles within us, heave and cast about;
And till they foot and clutch their prey,
They never cool, much less give out,
No smith can make such locks but they have keys;
Closets are halls to them; and hearts, high ways.
23
Man here becomes the earth which cannot be closeted easily.
But grief — moles have their own way to catch man.
Moles
work freely and what is worst, these moles are born within
the earth itself.
coin.
Human ingenuity gets paid back in the same
The only way out of this hopeless struggle between man
and his destiny is to change the human situation:
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Only an open breast
Doth shut them out, so that they cannot enter;
Or, if they enter, cannot rest,
But quickly seek some new adventure
Smooth open hearts no fastening have; but fiction
Doth give a hold and handle to affliction.^
Afflictions are thus defeated by an open heart because they
are shut out by an open heart.
to grief.
Only fiction gives some shelter
Herbert's 'fiction' could mean 'false poetry'
which he rejects in Jordan poems.
Herbert, in this poem,
seems to have achieved the kind of straight-forward poetry
which he wanted to achieve.
withering into truth.
It is actually what yeats calls
The last stanza of the poem brilliantly
sums up the merits and the consequences of a straight-forward
surrender to God.
Herbert, only in the last stanza, uses the
word 'confession' which has a theological as well as a more
profound poetic meaning.
The poetic meaning is profound
because it is achieved through the poetic arguments and a
ruthless examination of his own emotions and feelings.
The
doctrinal meaning of the word is given to the poet but the
poetic meaning has to be achieved:
For since confession pardon wins,
I challenge here the brightest day,
The clearest diamond: let them do their best,
25
They shall be thick and cloudy to my breast.
154
The soul tormented by the affliction and desperately asking
his God to ward them off and getting strength from the
belief that 'confession pardon winnes', can challenge the
brightest day, that is, the Day of Judgement.
It is the
brightest day because nothing can be hidden from the eyes of
God and it is also the 'clearest diamond' because God's
punishment is the most ruthless.
But the soul repenting and
covered by thick clouds of affliction can challenge this
brightest day.
The contrast between the brightest day of
God and the cloudy weather of the human soul evokes multiple
meanings about the situation of man-God relationship.
The
polarity between these two contrasting 'inner weathers'
reveals the most profound ambiguity of the poetic meaning.
The choice between these two 'weathers' — one human and
natural and the other, religious and not natural — is a
matter of human responsibility.
The idea of simplicity
which Herbert advocates in his Jordan poems, has not been
put into practice even while discussing the necessity of
the simplicity of heart.
The basic theme of the simplicity
and openness of one's heart has not been dealt with in a
simple way.
Herbert goes to scientific, geographical and
biological images, and by preparing an ideal combination
of them, he tries to achieve his meaning.
155
"Confession" is a highly personal poem of Herbert
like many religious poems written by John Donne.
The personal
note in this poem should not lead us to a hasty conclusion
that this poetry is romantic in nature.
The personal element
in the romantic poetry has a different quality'since it empha­
sizes the subjectivity of personal experience as the only
valid form of truth.
The personal element in the poetry of
the pre-Romantic period, especially which one finds in the
religious poetry, belongs to a different order of reality.
One cannot overlook the quantitative difference one finds in
the personal element of the confession of St Augustine and
the confessions of Rousseau.
The relation between man and
God, according to St. Augustine, is personal and the nature
of confession, according to the precepts of Christianity, is
also intimate and private.
The privacy of an ordinary indi­
vidual is social in its nature and its sanctity is one of the
devices to escape from the tyranny of society.
Herbert's
poem does not have the sanctity of a private experience as
one finds in Wordsworth's "Daffodils".
Herbert's confession
does not have the narcissistic quality which we find in the
personal experience of the Romantic poetry.
W.B. Yeats has classified George Herbert as a person
born under the twentyfifth phase of the moon, presiding over
the Great Lunar Year.
Yeats assigned a place to Herbert
156
ranking him with Luther, Cardinal Newman and George Russell.
Yeats has explained the nature of Herbert - type in these
words:
He is strong, full of initiative, full of
social intellect...
There may be great
eloquence, a mastery of all contrete
imagery, that is not personal expression,
because though as yet there is no
sinking into the world but much
distinctness, clear identity, there is
an over-flowing social conscience.^
Yeats further adds:
Poets of this phase are always stirred
to an imaginative intensity by some form
of propaganda.
George Herbert was doubtless of thi
doubtless of this phase.
27
Yeats views about Herbert and his description of the Herberttype. are worth-considering.
There is no doubt that the
poetry of Herbert has lot of eloquence since he was never
tired of discovering themes after themes in his religious
experience, and also his poetry abounds in concrete imagery.
Yeats calls this type the conditional man because all his
emotions are born out of conditions from actual life.
What
157
Yeats says is that the poets of this type are always stirred
to an imaginative intensity by the same form of propaganda,
and they can create some misgivings.
Probably Yeats means
by the word ’propaganda’ the missinary zeal of the bishop of
Bemerton.
But it is also true that belief in a religious
system always stirred Herbert to imaginative intensity and
hence, his insistence is on creating a new kind of poetry,
different from the classical love poetry in spirit and form.
What is implied by Yeata' description is that faith in God
to Herbert is as creative as imagination to other poets.
There is, of course, a difference between belief and imagi­
nation because they are the two distinct features and they
function in totally different areas. ' When a poet like Herbert
tries to write poetry of faith, these two powers begin to
interact upon each other and the result is quite astonishing.
A metaphor used by such a poet becomes an act of faith.
There is no doubt that Herbert's poetry, which gives
expression to his religious experience, is not only sincere
but also authentic as it is found in his Affliction poems.
But religiosity does not stop at this.
Even miracles which
have yet not happened are possible from the point of view of
religious faith.
They can at least happen in terms of language
which takes care of not only the actual but also the possible.
158
In a poem called "Faith" Herbert describes the
power of faith:
There is a rare outlandish root,
Which when I could not get, I thought it here:
That apprehension cured so well my foot,
That I can walk to heav'n well near. 28
The metaphor of the outlandish root very effectively describes
the power of faith, the power of creating something which is
not there at all.
magic of faith.
All devotional poetry depends upon this
Herbert in the same poem says:
Faith makes me anything, or all
That I believe is in the sacred story
And where sin placeth me in Adam's fall,
Faith sets me higher in his glory. 29
Faith, like imagination, can create something out of nothing
and turn that which one has heard or read into truth.
But
one must be careful of the power of faith and also of the
power of imagination.
Herbert, with his power of intellect,
has discerned this danger of the magic of faith.
Herbert
states in the last stanza:
What though my body run to dust?
Faith cleaves unto it, counting ev'ry grain
159
With an exact and most particular trust,
Reserving all for flesh again.
30
Religious faith must reject all that is non-religious and
this is possible only when the faith is directed by the power
of intellect.
Wisdom is a mature form of intellect and with
the help of wisdom we can differentiate not only good from
bad, but also that which is morally elevating from that
which is not.
Herbert's poetry is filled with this kind of
wisdom.
"Grace” is one more poem which gives expression to
Herbert's yearning for God's grace.
Grace is something
which Herbert has yet to have and experience.
yet to recognise the form and nature of grace.
need
Herbert has
God's grace
not be an experimental reality but, all the same, it
is a doctrinal truth.
The poet knows that God's grace is
something which is dropped from above and that is why, the
refrain of the song is 'Drop from above':
If still the sun should hide his face,
Thy house would but a dungeon prove,
Thy works night's captives: 0 let grace
“V Jk
Drop from above!"3
The sun-light without which the world becomes a captive of
darkness is an image of God's grace without which the world
1G0
cannot continue living.
What is significant here is that
the sentences are all conditional and not assertive.
The
individual, like a blade of grass which yearns for the dewdrops, calls the grace of God:
0 come ! for thou dost know the way:
Or if to me thou wilt not move,
Remove me, where I need not say,
Drop from above.
32
In the last stanza the poet simply makes a request which,
when fulfilled, will be turned into reality.
Otherwise he
asks God to remove him, to blot him out of existence.
The
last line of the poem —- ’Drop me from above* —- which is
printed in italics, acquires another meaning.
If grace is
not dropped from above, the individual shall be dropped from
above, into oblivion.
The poetry of faith which lacks experience must
depend upon something else which is equally contrete.
Herbert
in his later poems submits himself to the discipline of reli­
gion.
A person who adheres to a discipline must patiently
wait for the result.
But before that he must depend upon
something which he knows, something in which he has complete
trust.
In the poem "Discipline” Herbert describes this
condition:
161
Not a word or look
I affect to own
But thy book,
And thy book alone.
It is needless to say that the book is the Holy Bible.
In
the poem he prays for God’s love which is not experiential
but derived from the book.
According, to the book, God has
two attributes — wrath and love.
take the gentle path of love.
Herbert requests God to
The features of this 'love'
are all copied., from the Book and that figure of love, is
personified and which we find in the poem "Love ~ III".
The
dialogue between the protagonist of the poem and love is
carried out in a very lively way, but it must be noted that
what is presented in "Love - III" is the allegorical truth
and not experiential reality.
Gcd's love speaking to the
unworthy and ungrateful guest is quite a moving incident.
The relation between God's love end the protagonist is that
of a kind host and his aggressive guest.
The archetypal
situation carries with it a value which is eternal.
The
relation between the host and guest is far above the ordinary
relations of the world, and yet within the world.
It is
obvious that the relation between the human soul and God's
love is trans-sensual but it is presented in the poem in
sensual terms.
"Love - III":
162
....
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.
34
The etherial spirit assuming the corporeal form makes the
poem not only a living thing but it also sheds light on the
truth of incarnation.
The image of God’s love speaking like
a host is none other than Jesus himself.
The meat that the
human soul is invited to taste belongs to Him.
of meat has many overtones of symbolic meaning.
The tasting
The death
of Jesus is not death at all; it is life beyond death, and
therefore eternal.
The physical activities described in the
poem have, thus, a spiritual meaning; and the spirit becomes
more concrete than the body itself.
This quality reminds the
reader of one of Eliot’s remarks on Herbert that he has
spiritual stamina.
163
There are two more poems which express the reality
which is doctrinal, and yet as effective as the reality of
experience.
These two poems are "Judgement'!’ and "Heaven".
"Judgement", of course, describes what happens on the day
of Judgement.
It begins with the description of God's
ful look which is able to appal even a heart of iron.
calls for every man's peculiar book.
different from The Bible;
The Bible.
dread
God
The book is obviously
but the image does remind one of
The poet says that he does not know what others
will do at that moment.
thing different.
The poet has resolved to do some­
He would like to thrust a Testament into
the hands of God where God will find the faults as His own.
The protagonist has resolved to imitate Christ.
The poem presents the protagonist's preparation to
face the day of Judgement.
He has followed the words of
The Bible, and therefore, he need not shy away from the dread35
ful look of the "Almighty Judge".
The protagonist, like
others, does not show the leaves which are devoid of sin, or
probably he does not have his own book.
When a Christian
accepts the Haly Bible as a guide, he need not have his own
book.
The image of book from the poem "Discipline" has now
been developed and that image pervades the whole of this poem
Even the good deeds cannot be volunteered on our own; they
must also be inspired by the holy book.
The protagonist of
Herbert poetry, by this time, has reached a state when he is
164
on the verge of clasping his hands with God.
The poem which
bears the title "Clasping of Hands" presents this theme of
merging of the individual soul with God.
After playing on
the words ’mine’ and ’thine’ the poem reaches a conclusion:
0 be mine still! Still make me thine !
Or rather make no Thine and Mine !
Xf.
This is possible only if the human soul is assured of the fact
that Jesus suffered "to restore not thee but me, and to be
37
mine".
This transaction between God and the human soul
is not a moment’s business, but it is a condition which is
both in time and out of time.
The Day of Judgement itself
can happen any time and all the time because it is inherent
and does not happen at all.
One can experience that thing
which happens in time because experiencing is a temporal
process.
The poem "Heaven" presents the concept of heaven in
dramatic terms.
The poem is a dialogue — stychomythiac
dialogue ■— between the protagonist and Echo.
a dialogue with one’s own self.
In fact it is
Heaven has been defined as
a combination of light, joy and leisure.
The poem in a
convincing manner states that the three constitutive elements
of heaven are going to persevere for ever.
What is important
165
here is the suggestion that the truth has been culled out
from the book.
The echo which is born out of leaves alone
can tell that these leaves are the pages of the Holy Book:
What leaves are they? impart the matter wholly.
Echo. Holy.
Are holy leaves the Echo then of bliss?
Echo. Yes.38
The echo which is born out of the trees and leaves describes
a natural setting.
But suddenly the leaves of trees are
transformed into the leaves of the Holy Book.
This trans­
formation of nature into culture is frequent happening in the
poetry of George Herbert.
It is also the most important and
significant motif of his poetry.
In "Heaven", as in another
poem "Paradise" even the rhyming is artificial.
A word like
'abide' loses a letter 'a' and becomes 'bide' in the next
line.
The words go on shedding their letters like a tree
shedding its leaves in winter.
But by dropping their letters
the words change their meaning and yet retain their relation­
ship with the preceding word through rhyming.
This is a rare
linguistic phenomenon worked through poetic devices for the
transformation of meaning.
This phenomenon reflects clearly
what the poem wants to communicate — the transformation of
human nature into a profoundly religious culture.
166
"Sin - II" is comparatively a simple poem but the
idea which it presents is quite complicated. "Sin - II":
0 that I could a sin once see !
We paint the devil foul, yet he
Hath some good in him, all agree.
Sin is flat opposite to the Almighty, seeing
It wants the good of virtue, and of being.
But God more care of us hath had:
If apparitions make us sad,
By sight of sin we should grow mad.
Yet as in sleep we see foul death, and live:
So devils are our sins in perspective. 39
Here Herbert discusses the problem of conveying the meaning
of an abstract thing through painting.
The problem that he
raises is, can sin be picturised through painting?
He states
that picturisation and visualisation of sin by painting the
devil can hardly express the total meaning , of sin in it.
A picture of the devil cannot be identical with sin
and so the portrait of the devil cannot be the flat opposite
of Almighty.
The abstract idea of sin in itself stands in a
direct contrast to Almighty.
Herbert considers it an advi­
sable step of Almighty who does not allow us to visualise
167
sin in its physical form.
Herbert, making a logical argument,
states that if the appearance of ghost can cause fear and
sadness to its beholder, what would be the condition of that
person if he happens to see sin face to face, in its concrete
physical form.
beholder.
It would definitely cause madness to its
Thus, on the ground of God's mercy to mankind,
Herbert accepts the presentation of the idea of sin by pain­
ting the devil.
The basic problem which the poem raises is pertaining
to Herbert's own theory about simplicity in art and parti­
cularly in poetry.
On the one hand, he claimsthat simple
words can carry out the serious function like expression of
faith and on the other hand he passes a remark that a simple
picture of the devil cannot express the meaning of sin.
If
simple words can perform a serious function like the expression
of faith, why cannot a simple picture of the devil's figure
express the meaning of sin?
The theory that Herbert applies
to one sphere of art — poetry—is not applied by him to the
other sphere of art,
Herbert does not extend his theory of
poetry to the sphere of painting.
The use of 'flower'image is frequent in the poetry of
Herbert.
Herbert uses it in his poem "Repentance".
The
paradox which the reader notices here in the use of this
image is that it is an image which generally expresses the
168
idea of purity and beauty.
Here Herbert has used it for
the fallen soul and transitory life of a sinner.
The choice
of this image to convey the idea of sin and death is in
itself a new experiment of Herbert to express his faith. The
protagonist of the poem is a sinner.
He is conscious of his
sin and so requests God to treat him gently. He calls him­
self a "momentary bloom"^0
and hence, requires delicate
care.
The protagonist knows that the confession and true
repentance for those sins is the only way for him to earn
God’s grace, he is sure that he would be as much spiritual
and morally uplifted as any other devout Christian:
Fractures well cured makes us more strong.
41
The statement not only reflects the sinner's confidence to
earn God’s grace through repentance, but it also throws
light on one more facet of Herbert’s faith in God.
Herbert
in this statement sounds to be approving the commitment of
sin which leads the sinner towards repentance, consequently
enabling him to win pardon and God's grace.
The climax of
Herbert's spirituality is that he finds something divine
even in the commitment of sins.
Herbert wisely chooses the
medical image of 'fractures' to convey the meaning of moral
fall in totality.
169
Herbert's "Decay" is the story of the transgression
of Jesus's existence from the physical form to the spiritual
one.
What pains the protagonist in this poem is the end of
the physical existence of Jesus.
Nothing remains now except
past memories of Jesus's gossips and gospels, His philosophi­
cal discussions with Jacob, Gideon and Abraham.
These memo­
ries, in the past, were the live-realities to the protagonist.
With the loss of His physical existence, now He spiritually
exists in the heart of the people.
abstract and hence, not visible.
But that existence is
His spiritual existence
gives Him a very narrow and limited scope for His divine
functions.
His existence in the form of a spirit does not
allow him to perform any action physically.
Moreover, His
new residence for the spiritual existence — the human heart
— constantly remains surrounded by Sin and Satan. Sin and
42
Satan continuously "pinch and Strain"
Jesus, to get the
command over human body.
Of course, even in the spiritual
form, Jesus does not allow Sin and Satan to fulfil
their
wicked intentions.
The poem glorifies the spiritual existence of Jesus
but it also stands as an argument.
The argument which
Herbert makes here is that the physical existence of a saint
or God is as much, or even more important than the spiritual
existence.
The physical presence of a saint or God is more
170
powerful and effective.
The poem conveys Herbert's faith
not only in spirit but also in bcdy.
Faith in body is
inseparable from the faith in spirit.
This argument of
Herbert can be applied to his poetic theory:
his faith in
simple words reflects his faith in God.
"Jesu" is an ideal specimen of Herbert's intellect.
It is a word-game where he successfully derives a new meaning
from the word 'Jesu'.
The poem:
Jesu is in my heart, his sacred name
Is deeply carved there: but th'other week
A great affliction broke the little frame,
Ev'n all to pieces : which I went to seek:
And first I found the corner, where was J,
After where ES, and next where U was graved.
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart he was 'I ease you'
And to my whole is JESU. 43
The protagonist of the poem approves his heart as the real
place for Jesu to reside.
The deeply carved name of Jesu
resists all the tempters which try to defile his heart.
But
affliction is a major evil force which breaks the divine
boundry.
That divine frame, of the protagonist is made of
171
four letters:
'JESU'.
When affliction breaks this frame,
the four letters get dispersed on the floor.
Herbert begins his word-game.
With this,
The protagonist's attempt of
collecting those dispersed letters and putting them in the
same order gives a new meaning to that word.
He, observing
the same spelling order, makes three divisions of that word
and they are 'J',
'ES' and 'U'.
The first division, which
is made of a single letter 'J', conveys the meaning of JESU.
The second division, which is made of 'ES*, conveys the
meaning of 'ease', and 'the third division, which is made of
'U', convey the meaning of 'you'.
This makes it clear that
the newly derived meaning of the word 'Jesu' after three
meaningful'division is,
'Jesus eases you'.
The newly
derived meaning offers soothing effect to the protagonist
and particularly to his broken heart.
Herbert's treatment to the word 'JESU' in itself
becomes a way for him to express his deep faith in Jesus. It
also proves Herbert a profound linguist.
Herbert, without
changing the spelling order of that word produces a new
meaning which, again, denotes the function of Jesus.
Herbert
with his intellect proves that the word 'JESU' in itself is
an embodiment of Jesus's function on the earth.
172
"The Pulley" is one more evidence of Herbert’s
ability in playing the word-game.
Its \tforth-noting element
is that Herbert does not put this word-game in the form of
utterances in the mouth of the blessing seeker.
who speaks to the blessing-seeker.
It is God
God Himself is the prota­
gonist of the present poem:
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.
For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewel also or. my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
173
Let him he rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast. 44
The poem reads simple and straight-forward on the surface.
God, after creating Man, decides to pour a glass of blessings
on him so that his creation may not suffer.
God first pours
strength which gets followed by other riches like beauty,
wisdom, honour and pleasure.
Now only rest, which is at the
bottom of the glass, remains.
God cleverly decides not to
pour this last jewel of rest on his creature because He knows
that once his creature is blessed with that jewel, he would
always glorify His gifts and not Him.
That would cause loss
to both as God will lose his creation and he would lose his
God.
This foresight of God prevents Himself from showering
rest on Man. The Creator’s design is to make His creation
rich materially but also to keep some restlessness in him so
that it may not allow him to forget his Creator.
God is sure
that the restlessness of Man will compel him to remember and
pray Him.
The word-game of Herbert makes the apparent simplicity
of the poem deceptive.
the word 'rest'.
meanings.
man,
Herbert creates a pun by playing with
The same word has been used for two different
When God says that He is not willing to pour rest on
what He means by the word ’rest*
is ’ease' or ’leisure*.
174
But the same word, also conveys the meaning of 'remaining
things'.
Except rest, all other things are gifted by God
to his creation.
The poem reveals firm conviction of Herbert
that the way sin followed by repentance becomes a major
source for a human being to receive God's grace, weariness
and restlessness can also work out to be a tool bringing man
and God closer.
The title of this poem - "The Pulley" - adds to the
absurdity and obscurity which is generally found in the poetry
of the metaphysicals.
'Pulley' is a word which belongs to
the world of science and machine.
hand, deals with divinity.
The poem, on the other
Scientifically, pulley is that
part which offers a connection to rotate any other part of a
machine.
It is a type of connector.
Herbert uses this word
with the same concept about it in his mind.
According to
Herbert, restlessness performs the function of a pulley not
in the field of machinery, but in the field of divinity.
Restlessness, like pulley, connects two living elements —
man and God.
The poem reminds the readers of Marvell's use
of scientific and geometrical images in his love-poems.
The
success of Herbert is to be found in the fact that he selects
an images from altogether a different sphere and applies it
to the sphere of divinity and even then, it does not look
awkward because the nature of that image — 'pulley' —
175
remains in tune with what Herbert wants to say in this poem.
Herbert's sonnet "Avarice" discusses the theme of a
major hindrance on the path of divinity.
causes that hindrance is money.
The factor which
Herbert here finds it more
advisable and appealing to comment on that factor than on
its victim.
The sonnet opens with two adjectives which,
together, present the complete characteristic features of
money.
It is a "bane of bliss" 45 and also the "source of
woe". 46
Both the adjectives together reflect the dual
function of money.
Money is in itself a great power which
sometimes gives comfort and sometimes becomes a cause for
restlessness.
Herbert finds it essential to go to the root
of how money is originated to convey how the same money
originates restlessness for man.
Money —- coins and
currency notes — is basically a native of dark muddy mine
where it remains unnoticed and in a worthless condition.
The touch of man proves to be the touch of touchstone for
that insignificant material of a mine, converting it into
the material of the most significance.
It is man who prepares
money by collecting base material and refining it in the form
of coins.
Ironically, the same money -— coins — created
by man overshadows him.
originating money,
place by money:
Man, who was at the centre before
has been now removed from his central
176
Nay, thou hast got the face of man; for we
Have with our stamp and seal transferred our right:
Thou art man, and man hut dress to thee.
Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich.
And while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch.
hi
In the very act of enriching money, man has become ’poor*.
The sonnet as a whole proves inability of man to think in
the same way while originating money, as God thought while
creating man and showering His blessings on him.
As It is
conveyed in "The Pulley", God preferred not only to be a
creator but also the controller of man.
Unfortunately, man
concentrated only on the aspect of originating money, without
bothering for how to control that creation.
As a result of
this,' God is not overruled by man but man is overruled by
his creation - money.
Herbert in this poem indirectly
proves the supremacy of God over man.
"Peace" is a typical piece of Herbert’s poetry where
he combines the simplicity with allegorical aspect.
The
protagonist of this poem, who is in search of peace,
moves
from place to place.
First, he reaches a secret cave and
peeps inside to see if peace were there. The dark hollow cave
dissatisfies the expectation of the protagonist. He than goes
177
to the beauty of Nature.
Different colours of the rainbow
make him feel the presence of peace there.
But the disper­
sing of the clouds and disappearing of the rainbow dis­
appoints him.
garden.
The next venture cf the protagonist is the
The blossoming flowers seem to be conveying him
that peace is at the root of those plants.
To his surprise
and shock, what he finds at the root is not peace but a
devour worm.
The protagonist ultimately meets one old man with a
hope to get some clue about the residence of peace.
That
old man who looks like a saint tells a story which is an
echo of the biblical myth.
prince before many years.
All his virtues at a time could
not save him from his foes.
up twelve wheat plants.
There lived a good and honest
After his death, there sprouted
Many people got the grains of those
wheat plants and they planted these grains for more and more
plants and grains.
all over the earth.
This is how, those wheat grains spread
All those who tasted it approved of its
secret virtue of bringing peace and true joy by driving sin
out of the human mind:
For they that taste it dc rehearse,
That virtues lies therein,
A secret virtue bringing peace and
48
mirth by flight of sin.
178
The old man suggests the protagonist to taste some grains
of that plant and then there would remain no need for him
to search peace.
The first half of the poem is a genuine attempt of
Herbert to preserve simplicity but that simplicity is fused
with allegorical pattern which one can find in the second
half of the poem.
One to one correspondence, which is the
first condition of any allegory, is visible in the present
poem.
The prince of that old man’s story stands for Jesus,
Salem for Jerusalem, twelve stalhs of wheat for epostles of
Jesus and the spreading of that harvest all through the earth
suggests the growth and spreading of Christianity.
The
ultimate solution which Herbert puts in the hands of his
protagonist is to have full faith in Jesus which brings real
peace of mind to a person.
"Virtue" is one more poem by Herbert which needs a
close analysis because it is a poem which in a curious way
sums up the poetic achievement of Herbert.
This is one of
those poems by Herbert which have been most anthologised and,
for that reason alone, their significance has been a little
worn out through familiarity.
Again, as it is in many other
poems by Herbert, the most surfacial meaning of the poem is
didactic.
The poem does celebrate the efficacy of virtue but
179
it should not be forgottdn that it is virtue which is
absolute and not the opposite of vice.
It must be noted
here that Herbert probably had in his mind the principle of
’plastic virtue' which was expounded by his brother Edward
Herbert.
It deserves a special mention in this thesis what
•Herbert of Cherbury wrote in his De Veritate.
It suggests
that any one who refuses to look for the law by which these
principles combine with our own in the mind or the harmony
of the world, that plastic power which reduces different
kinds of food to one form, may learn to know it through his
inner conscience.
George Herbert realised this truth through his study
of Christian doctrines and came to an emphatic conclusion
that 'you do not die alone', because 'the whole machine is
one with your cross'.
The poem describes three deaths of
natural events in succession and then presents the principle
of immortality against this background.
"Virtue":
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The Jpridal of the earth and shy:
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die
180
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.^
The day is sweet, the rose is sweet and the spring
is also sweet and this insistence on sweetness led Helen
Vendler to say that 'sweet' is a key-word in the poem, and
that the poem is keen on proving that the sweetness of the
human soul is qualitatively different from the natural sweet­
ness of the day, the rose and the spring.
It is true that
the contrast is between the sweetness which is ephemeral
and the sweetness which is everlasting.
But Herbert's subtle
use of imagery tries to convey something more profound and
it is conveyed in a subtle and oblique way.
Herbert, who
championed the cause of simplicity, and straight-forwardness,
makes the very simplicity a lightly complex device.
The
first stanza of the poem describes an unusually bright day:
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.
181
The image of the 'bridal of the earth and sky' is a little ’
unusual because of its erotic’ shade, but it helps to highten
the contrast between marriage and death.
M C Bradbrook in
his essay 'Herbert's Ground' discovers the topological
meaning in this stanza:
The scene is a wide plain where
earth and sky reflect each-other,
it is the great dominating Cambridge
skyscape (or perhaps Salisbury plain)
where the bridal is shewn in the
ring that, all round join the two
together. 50
Bradbrook*s comments are helpful in a way that they prove
the thesis that the poem tries to combine the physical with
the metaphysical.
The marriage of earth and sky attains its
consummation, at least, for a time being.
The poem makes
the reader aware that it does not last long, and that it is
only a momentary vision.
The death has not taken place but
it is certain.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
182
The image of rose has been frequently used by Herbert in his
poetry to represent flesh.
In a poem entitled "The Rose"
Herbert considers the rose as a flower which "doth judge and
sentence wordly joys to be a scourge".
The human flesh
has its own answer to all the worldly questions.
rose has ’angry' and ’brave’ colour.
Both the adjectives
used here have changed their connection now.
flesh,
Here, the
When used as
’angry’ means inflamed and therefore of ill-health.
The hue of the rose reveals the mortality of the rose and
that is the human flesh.
The rash gazer wipes his eye
because the rose speaks to him the language of mortality,
and death which is in the roots, is revealed to him.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses
A box where sweets' compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
The third stanza repeats the theme of mortality through the
images of spring but with a difference:.; Spring is a
’compacted’ image because it contains both days and roses.
But spring becoming a box where ’sweets compacted lie' is a
very important image.
This transformation of the natural
into artificial leads to a greater transformation in the
last stanza.
183
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But through the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
Bradbrook explains;?, this transformation in the following
terms:
Moving out of the blossoming Maytime,
under the great roof seasoned timber,
the hundred oaks from Charlwood
Forest given by King Henry VII, we
see above no longer the embracing
sky, but that glory of Cambridge, the
52
roof Great St. Mary's.
The great image of Great St. Mary’s Church is revealed in
the last stanza.
But it seems that the image of the church
is implicit right from the beginning in the poem.
The
bridal of earth and sky must take place in a church and the
grave which covers the roof of the rose also is in a church.
The transformation of each natural image into a part of the
church or the temple is fully realised in the image of
’timber’ in the last stanza.
The ’seasoned timber’ which
has stopped growing into a tree has its own function,
184
religious function.
Since it is seasoned, it can last
long, longer than the world which would turn to coal.
The
difference between the seasoned timber and the wood of the
world turning into coal must be noted here.
becomes a box also does not last long.
Spring which
The 'box', in a sense,
is the death of a tree since the world ’box' suggests the
coffin with a dead body in it.
The miracle achieved at the
end of the poem is both religious and poetic.
Even on the
day of Judgement, the Temple stands and also 'chiefly lives'
because of the religious faith of the poet and becomes a
poetic truth through the clever manipulation of simple words
like ’bridal’,
’grave’,
'box' and ’timber’.
In brief, the poems which are included here and
analysed
in full detail
reveal the complexity of language
and thought in Herbert's poetry.
185
NOTES
1.
Helen Gardner,
The Metaphysical Poets
(Oxford University Press; London: 1961),
"Introduction", p. XXXII.
2.
Louis L Martz, (ed.)
George Herbert and Henry Vaughan
(Oxford University Press; Oxford: 1986),
"The Forerunners", p. 160.
3.
Ibid., "Man", p. 79.
4.
Ibid., "Man'^p. 80.
5.
William Shakespeare,
George Rylands (ed.)
Hamlet
(The Clarendon Press; Oxford: 1947), p. 99.
6.
Louis L Martz (ed.) 0. Cit., "Man", p. 81.
7.
Ibid., "Affliction - I", p. 40.
8.
Ibid., "Affliction - I", p. 41.
9.
Ibid., "Affliction - I", Loc. Cit
10.
Ibid., "Affliction - II" .. p. 53.
186
11.
Ibid., "Affliction - III", p. 63 f.
12.
Helen Gardner,
The Poems of George Herbert
(Oxford University Press; London: 1961),
"Introduction", p. XV.
14.
Ibid., "Denial", p. 70.
15.
Ibid.,
"Affliction
■-
V", p. 85
16.
Ibid., "Affliction
•-
V", Loc. i
17.
Ibid., "Affliction
-
V", p. 86
CO
Louis L, Martz (ed.) , Op. Cit.,
•
13.
Ibid., "The Cross", p. 149.
1
20.
Ibid., "The Flower"
21 .
Ibid., "Confession" , p. 112.
22.
Ibid., "Confession"
23.
Ibid.,
"Confession" , Loc. Cit.
•
Ibid.,
"Confession" , Loc. Cit.
•
Ibid.,
"Confession" , Loc. Cit.
CM
Ibid.,
CM
"The Cross", p. 150,
19.
,
,
P. 151.
p. 113.
. 98.
187
26.
¥
B
Yeats,
A Vision
(Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London: 1962), p. 173.
27.
Ibid., p. 175.
28.
Louis L Mattz (ed.) Op. Cit ., "Faith"
29.
Ibid., "Faith", p. 43.
31.
Ibid., "Grace", p. 42.
32.
Ibid., "Grace", p. 43.
33.
Ibid., "Discipline", p. 162 «
34.
Ibid., "Love - III", p. 17' f.
35.
Ibid., "Judgement", p. 170.
36.
Ibid., "Clasping of Hands"? p. 142.
37.
Ibid., "Clasping of Hands". Loc. Cit.
38.
Ibid., "Heaven", p. 171.
39.
Ibid., "Sin - II", p. 54.
40.
Ibid., "Repentance", p. 41.
«
o
fA
Ibid,, "Faith", Loc. Cit.
188
41.
Ibid., "Repentance", p. 42.
42,
Ibid., "Decay", p. 87.
43.
Ibid., "Jesu", p. 99 f.
44.
Ibid., "The Pulley", p. 144
45.
Ibid., "Avarice", p. 67.
46.
Ibid., "Avarice", Loc. Cit,.
47.
Ibid., "Avarice", Loc. Cit,
48.
Ibid., "Peace", p. 112.
49.
Ibid., "Virtue", p. 77.
50.
Anne Barton,
(ed.)
Essays and Studies: 1981
M.C. Bradbrook.
(The English Association; London: 1981), p. 85.
51.
Louis L Martz (ed.), Op. Cit., "The Rose", p. 162,
52.
Anne Barton (ed.), Op. Cit., "Herbert’s Ground", p. 86,