Selected Works. George Herbert
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MY heart did heave, and there came forth, O 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 knowst my tallies; and when there’s assign’d
So much breath to a sigh, what’s then behinde?
Or if some yeares with it escape,
The sigh then onely is
A gale to bring me sooner to my blisse.
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 suffer ill.
They who lament one crosse,
Thou dying dayly, praise thee to thy losse.
49. THE STARRE.
BRIGHT spark, shot from a brighter place,
Where beams surround my Saviour’s face,
Canst thou be any where
So well as there?
Yet, if thou wilt from thence depart,
Take a bad lodging in my heart;
For thou canst make a debter,
And make it better.
First with thy fire-work burn to dust
Folly, and worse than folly, lust:
Then with thy light refine,
And make it shine.
So disengag’d from sinne and sicknesse,
Touch it with thy celestiall quicknesse
That it may hang and move
After thy love.
Then with our trinitie of light,
Motion, and heat, let’s take our flight
Unto the place where thou
Before didst bow.
Get me a standing there, and place
Among the beams, which crown the face
Of him, who dy’d to part
Sinne and my heart:
That so among the rest I may
Glitter, and curle, and winde as they:
That winding is their fashion
Of adoration.
Sure thou wilt joy, by gaining me
To flie home like a laden bee
Unto that hive of beams
And garland-streams.
50. SUNDAY.
O DAY most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next world’s bud,
Th’ indorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his bloud;
The couch of time; cares balm and bay;
The week were dark, but for thy light:
Thy torch doth show the way.
The other dayes and thou
Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The worky-daies are the back-part;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoup and bow,
Till thy release appeare.
Man had straight forward gone
To endlesse death; but thou dost pull
And turn us round to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still;
Since there is no place so alone
The which he doth not fill.
Sundaies the pillars are,
On which heav’n’s palace arched lies:
The other dayes fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitfull beds and borders
In God’s rich garden: that is bare
Which parts their ranks and orders.
The Sundaies of man’s life,
Thredded together on Time’s string,
Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternall glorious King.
On Sunday heaven’s gate stands ope;
Blessings are plentifull and rife,
More plentifull then hope.
This day my Saviour rose,
And did inclose this light for his:
That, as each beast his manger knows,
Man might not of his fodder misse.
Christ hath took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wound.
The rest of our Creation
Our great Redeemer did remove
With the same shake, which at his passion
Did th’ earth and all things with it move.
As Samson bore the doores away,
Christ’s hands, though nailed, wrought our salvation,
And did unhinge that day.
The brightnesse of that daye
We sullied by our foul offence:
Wherefore that robe we cast away,
Having a new at his expense,
Whose drops of bloud paid the full price,
That was requir’d to make us gay,
And fit for Paradise.
Thou art a day of mirth:
And where the week-dayes trail on ground,
Thy flight is higher, as thy birth:
O let me take thee at the bound,
Leaping with thee from sev’n to sev’n,
Till that we both, being toss’d from earth,
Flie hand in hand to heav’n!
51. AVARICE.
MONEY, thou bane of blisse, and source of wo,
Whence com’st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
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