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Selection from The Temple by George Herbert
Read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes
The Thanksgiving Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true,
To thee of all kings onely due) Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for
thee, Who in all grief preventest me?
Shall I weep bloud? why, thou hast wept such store
That all thy body was one doore. Shall I be scourged, floutted, boxed, sold?
’Tis but to tell the tale is told. My God, my God, why dost thou part from me?
Was such a grief as cannot be. Shall I then sing, skipping thy doleful storie,
And side with thy triumphant glorie? Shall thy stokes be my stroking? thorns, my
flower? Thy rod, my posie? crosse, my bower?
But how then shall I imitate thee, and Copie thy fair, though bloudie hand?
Surely I will revenge me on thy love, And trie who shall victorious prove.
If thou dost give me wealth, I will restore All back unto thee by the poore.
If thou dost give me honour, men shall see, The honour doth belong to thee.
I will not marry; or, if she be mine, She and her children shall be thine.
My bosome friend, if he blaspheme thy Name, I will tear thence his love and fame.
One half of me being gone, the rest I give Unto some Chappell, die or live.
As for thy passion—But of that anon, When with the other I have done.
For thy predestination I’le contrive, That three yeares hence, if I survive,
I’le build a spittle,or mend common wayes, And mend mine own without delayes.
Then I will use the works of thy creation, As if I us’d them but for fashion.
The world and I will quarrell; and the yeare Shall not perceive, that I am here.
My musick shall finde thee, and ev’ry string Shall have his attribute to sing;
That all together may accord in thee, And prove one God, one harmonie.
If thou shalt give me wit, it shall appeare, If thou hast give’n it me, ’tis here.
Nay, I will reade thy book, and never move Till I have found therein thy love,
Thy art of love, which I’le turn back on thee:
O my deare Saviour, Victorie! Then for thy passion—I will do for that—
Alas, my God, I know not what. End of poem
The Agony Philosophers have measured mountains,
Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings,
Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains
But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.
Who would know Sin, let him repair Unto Mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man, so wrung with pains, that all his hair, His skin, his garments, bloody be.
Sin is that Press and Vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through every vein. Who knows not Love, let him assay,
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.
End of poem Good Friday
O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell?
Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show'd thy first breath, Shall all thy death?
Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign, Of the true vine?
Then let each hour Of my whole life one grief devour;
That thy distress through all may run, And be my sun.
Or rather let My several sins their sorrows get;
That, as each beast his cure doth know, Each sin may so.
Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in One box doth lie both ink and sin:
That when Sin spies so many foes, Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, Sin may say, No room for me, and fly away.
Sin being gone, O fill the place, And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return, And all the writings blot or burn.
End of poem
Redemption Having been tenant long to a rich lord,
Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold, And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.
In heaven at his manor I him sought; They told me there that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought Long since on earth, to take possessiòn.
I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts; In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts;
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,
Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.
End of poem
The Church-Floor Mark you the floore? that square and speckled
stone, Which looks so firm and strong,
Is Patience: And th’ other black and grave, wherewith
each one Is checker’d all along,
Humilitie: The gentle rising, which on either hand
Leads to the Quire above, Is Confidence:
But the sweet cement, which in one sure band Ties the whole frame, is Love
And Charitie. Hither sometimes Sinne steals, and stains
The marbles neat and curious veins: But all is cleansed when the marble weeps.
Sometimes Death, puffing at the doore, Blows all the dust about the floore:
But while he thinks to spoil the room, he sweeps.
Blest be the Architect, whose art Could build so strong in a weak heart.
End of poem
The Windows Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass; Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory More reverend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin. Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing, And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
End of poem
Constancy Who is the honest man?
He that does still and strongly good pursue, To God, his neighbor, and himself most true:
Whom neither force nor fawning can Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due.
Whose honesty is not So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind
Can blow away, or glittering look it blind: Who rides his sure and even trot,
While the world now rides by, now lags behind. Who, when great trials come,
Nor seeks, nor shuns them; but does calmly stay,
Till he the thing and the example weigh: All being brought into a sum,
What place or person calls for, he does pay. Whom none can work or woo
To use in any thing a trick or sleight; For above all things he abhors deceit:
His words and works and fashion too All of a piece, and all are clear and straight.
Who never melts or thaws At close temptations: when the day is done,
His goodness sets not, but in dark can run: The sun to others writes their laws,
And is their virtue; Virtue is his Sun. Who when he is to treat
With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway,
Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: Whom others faults do not defeat;
But though men fail him, yet his part does play.
Whom nothing can procure, When the wide world runs bias from his will,
To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill,
This is the Mark-man, safe and sure, Who still is right, and prays to be so still.
End of poem
Sunday O Day most calm, most bright,
The fruit of this, the next worlds 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’ns palace arched lies:
The other dayes fill up the spare And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitfull beds and borders In Gods rich garden: that is bare,
Which parts their ranks and orders. The Sundaies of mans life,
Thredded together on times string, Make bracelets to adorn the wife
Of the eternall glorious King. On Sunday heavens 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 Sampson bore the doores away,
Christs hands, though nail’d, wrought our salvation,
And did unhinge that day. The brightnesse of that day
We sullied by our foul offence: Wherefore that robe we cast away,
Having a new at his expence, 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! End of poem
Denial When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears, Then was 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.”
O 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.
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. End of poem
Sighs and Groans O Do not use me
After my sinnes! look not on my desert, But on thy glorie! Then thou wilt reform
And not refuse me: for thou onely art The mightie God, but I a sillie worm;
O do not bruise me! O do not urge me!
For what account can thy ill steward make? I have abus’d thy stock, destroy’d thy
woods, Suckt all thy magazens: my head did ake,
Till it found out how to consume thy goods: O do not scourge me!
O do not blinde me! I have deserv’d that an Egyptian night
Should thicken all my powers; because my *** Hath still sow’d fig-leaves to exclude thy
light: But I am frailtie, and already dust;
O do not grinde me! O do not fill me
With the turn’d viall of thy bitter wrath! For thou hast other vessels full of bloud,
A part whereof my Saviour empti’d hath, Ev’n unto death: since he di’d for my
good, O do not kill me!
But O reprieve me! For thou hast life and death at thy command;
Thou art both Judge and Saviour, feast and rod,
Cordiall and Corrosive: put not thy hand Into the bitter box; but O my God,
My God, relieve me! End of poem
The World Love built a stately house; where Fortune
came, And spinning phansies, she was heard to say,
That her fine cobwebs did support the frame, Whereas they were supported by the same:
But Wisdome quickly swept them all away. Then Pleasure came, who, liking not the fashion,
Began to make Balcones, Terraces, Till she had weakned all by alteration:
But rev’rend laws, and many a proclamation Reformed all at length with menaces.
Then enter’d Sinne, and with that Sycomore, Whose leaves first sheltred man from drought
& dew, Working and winding slily evermore,
The inward walls and sommers cleft and tore: But Grace shor’d these, and cut that as
it grew. Then Sinne combin’d with Death in a firm
band To raze the building to the very floore:
Which they effected, none could them withstand. But Love and Grace took Glorie by the hand,
And built a braver Palace then before. End of poem
Obedience My God, if writings may
Convey a Lordship any way Whither the buyer and the seller please;
Let it not thee displease, If this poore paper do as much as they.
On it my heart doth bleed As many lines, as there doth need
To passe itself and all it hath to thee. To which I do agree,
And here present it as my speciall deed. If that hereafter Pleasure
Cavill, and claim her part and measure, As if this passed with a reservation,
Or some such words in fashion; I here exclude the wrangler from thy treasure.
O let thy sacred will All thy delight in me fulfill!
Let me not think an action mine own way, But as thy love shall sway,
Resigning up the rudder to thy skill. Lord, what is man to thee,
That thou shouldst minde a rotten tree? Yet since thou canst not choose but see my
actions; So great are thy perfections,
Thou mayst as well my actions guide, as see. Besides, thy death and bloud
Show’d a strange love to all our good: Thy sorrows were in earnest; no faint proffer,
Or superficiall offer Of what we might not take, or be withstood.
Wherefore I all forgo: To one word onely I say, No:
Where in the deed there was an intimation Of a gift or donation,
Lord, let it now by way of purchase go. He that will passe his land,
As I have mine, may set his hand And heart unto this deed, when he hath read;
And make the purchase spread To both our goods, if he to it will stand.
How happie were my part, If some kinde man would thrust his heart
Into these lines; till in heav’ns court of rolls
They were by winged souls Entred for both, farre above their desert!
End of poem
Man's Medley Hark, how the birds do sing,
And woods do ring. All creatures have their joy: and man hath
his. Yet if we rightly measure,
Mans joy and pleasure Rather hereafter, then in present, is.
To this life things of sense Make their pretence:
In th' other Angels have a right by birth: Man ties them both alone,
And makes them one, With th' one hand touching heav'n, with th'
other earth. In soul he mounts and flies,
In flesh he dies. He wears a stuffe whose thread is course and
round, But trimm'd with curious lace,
And should take place After the trimming, not the stuffe and ground.
Not that he may not here Taste of the cheer,
But as birds drink, and straight lift up their head,
So he must sip and think Of better drink
He may attain to, after he is dead. But as his joyes are double;
So is his trouble. He hath two winters, other things but one:
Bothe frosts and thoughts do nip, And bite his lip;
And he of all things fears two deaths alone. Yet ev'n the greatest griefs
May be reliefs, Could he but take them right, and in their
wayes. Happie is he, whose heart
Hath found the art To turn his double pains to double praise.
End of poem
The Twenty-third Psalm The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed: While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need? He leads me to the tender grasse,
Where I both feed and rest; Then to the streams that gently passe:
In both I have the best. Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my minde in frame: And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name. Yea, in deaths shadie black abode
Well may I walk, not fear: For thou art with me; and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear. Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev’n in my enemies sight: My head with oyl, my cup with wine
Runnes over day and night. Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my dayes; And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise. End of poem
Mary Magdalene When blessed Marie wip’d her Saviours feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before) And wore them for a jewell on her head,
Shewing his steps should be the street, Wherein she thenceforth evermore
With pensive humblenesse would live and tread: She being stain’d her self, 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
In tears like seas, our sinnes are pil’d Deeper then they, in words, and works, and
thoughts. Deare soul, she knew who did vouchsafe and
deigne To bear her filth; and that her sinnes did
dash Ev’n God himself: wherefore she was not
loth, As she had brought wherewith to stain,
So to bring in wherewith to wash: And yet in washing one, she washed both.
End of poem
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.
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. 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.
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. So, holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast, My doctrine tun'd by Christ (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest), Come people; Aaron's drest.
End of poem
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,
To run into an action; But still to make Thee prepossest,
And give it his perfection. A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye; Or it 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"—
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. This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold; For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told. End of poem
A Wreath A Wreathed garland of deserved praise,
Of praise deserved, unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my wayes,
My crooked winding wayes, wherein I live, Wherein I die, not live: for life is straight,
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee, To thee, who art more farre above deceit,
Then deceit seems above simplicitie. Give me simplicitie, that I may live,
So live and like, that I may know, thy wayes, Know them and practise them: then shall I
give For this poore wreath, give thee a crown of
praise. End of poem
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 considered thee as at some six
Or ten years hence, After the loss of life and sense,
Flesh being turned to dust, and bones to sticks. We looked on this side of thee, shooting short;
Where we did find The shells of fledge souls left behind,
Dry dust, which sheds no tears, but may extort. But since our Savior’s death did put some
blood Into thy face,
Thou art grown fair and full of grace, 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.
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.
End of poem
Love LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything. 'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.' 'I, the unkind, ungrateful? 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 marr'd 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.
End of poem