George Herbert

As he that sees a dark and shady grove, Stays not, but looks beyond it on the sky; So when I view my sins, mine eyes remove More backward still, and to that water fly, Which is above the heav'ns, whose spring and rest Is in my dear Redeemer's pierced side. O blessed streams! either ye do prevent And stop our sins from growing thick and wide, Or else give tears to drown them, as they grow. In you Redemption measures all my time, And spreads the plaster equal to the crime; You taught the book of life my name, that so What ever future sins should me miscall, Your first acquaintance might discredit all.

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age, Gods breath in man returning to his birth, The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgramage, The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth; Engine against th'Almightie, sinners towre, Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear, The six-daies world-transposing in an houre, A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear; Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse, Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best, Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest, The milkie way, the bird of Paradise, Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud, The land of spices; something understood.

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store, Though foolishly he lost the same, Decaying more and more, Till he became Most poor: With thee O let me rise As larks, harmoniously, And sing this day thy victories: Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did begin:

And still with sicknesses and shame Thou didst so punish sin, That I became Most thin. With thee Let me combine And feel this day thy victory: For, if I imp my wing on thine, Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

I made a posie, while the day ran by: Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But time did becken to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away And wither'd in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart: I took, without more thinking, in good part Times gentle admonition: Who did so sweetly deaths sad taste convey Making my minde to smell my fatall day; Yet sugring the suspicion.

Farewell deare flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament, And after death for cures. I follow straight without complaints or grief, Since if my sent be good, I care not, if It be as short as yours.

The harbingers are come. See, see their mark; White is their colour, and behold my head. But must they have my brain? must they dispark Those sparkling notions, which therein were bred? Must dulnesse turn me to a clod? Yet have they left me, Thou art still my God.

Good men ye be, to leave me my best room, Ev'n all my heart, and what is lodged there: I passe not, I, what of the rest become, So Thou art still my God, be out of fear. He will be pleased with that dittie; And if I please him, I write fine and wittie.

Farewell sweet phrases, lovely metaphors. But will ye leave me thus? when ye before Of stews and brothels onely knew the doores, Then did I wash you with my tears, and more, Brought you to Church well drest and clad; My God must have my best, ev'n all I had.

Louely enchanting language, sugar-cane, Hony of roses, whither wilt thou flie? Hath some fond lover tic'd thee to thy bane? And wilt thou leave the Church, and love a stie? Fie, thou wilt soil thy broider'd coat, And hurt thy self, and him that sings the note.

Let foolish lovers, if they will love dung, With canvas, not with arras clothe their shame: Let follie speak in her own native tongue. True beautie dwells on high: ours is a flame But borrow'd thence to light us thither. Beautie and beauteous words should go together.

Yet if you go, I passe not; take your way: For, Thou art still my God, is all that ye Perhaps with more embellishment can say, Go birds of spring: let winter have his fee, Let a bleak palenesse chalk the doore, So all within be livelier then before.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! ev'n as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snows in May, As if there were no such cold thing.

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown; Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

These are thy wonders, Lord of power, Killing and quick'ning, bringing down to hell And up to heaven in an hour; Making a chiming of a passing-bell. We say amiss, This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell.

O that I once past changing were, Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Off'ring at heav'n, growing and groaning thither: Nor doth my flower Want a spring shower, My sins and I joining together.

But while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent, as if heav'n were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline: What frost to that? What pole is not the zone, Where all things burn, When thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown?

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: O my only light, It cannot be That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night.

These are thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide; Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us, where to bide. Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee, Wherewith whole showls 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 layes Upon thine Altar burnt? Cannot thy love Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove Out-strip their Cupid easily in flight? Or, since thy wayes 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?

Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate Is all the passage, on my infancy Thou didst lay hold, and antedate My faith in me.

O let me still Write thee great God, and me a child: Let me be soft and supple to thy will, Small to my self, to others mild, Behither ill.

Although by stealth My flesh get on, yet let her sister My soul bid nothing, but preserve her wealth: The growth of flesh is but a blister; Childhood is health.