All Poems
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Bitter-Sweet
© George Herbert
Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.
Lent
© George Herbert
Welcome dear feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authority,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church says, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The Agony
© George Herbert
Philosophers have measur'd mountains,
Fathom'd the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk'd with a staff to heav'n, 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.
Church Music
© George Herbert
Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure
Did through my body wound my mind,
You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure
A dainty lodging me assigned.
H. Baptism
© 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,
The Elixir
© George Herbert
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything
To do it as for Thee.
Denial
© George Herbert
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:
The Quip
© George Herbert
The merry world did on a day
With his train-bands and mates agree
To meet together where I lay,
And all in sport to jeer at me.
Sin's Round
© George Herbert
Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am,
That my offences course it in a ring.
My thoughts are working like a busy flame,
Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring:
And when they once have perfected their draughts,
My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts.
Prayer
© George Herbert
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;
The Thanksgiving
© George Herbert
Oh King of grief! (a title strange, yet true,
To thee of all kings only due)
Oh King of wounds! how shall I grieve for thee,
Who in all grief preventest me?
Easter Song
© George Herbert
I Got me flowers to straw Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And broughtst Thy sweets along with Thee.
The Flower
© George Herbert
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.
H. Baptism II
© George Herbert
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.
The Forerunners
© George Herbert
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.
Nature
© George Herbert
Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou has aught to do with me.
O tame my heart;
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.
Church Monuments
© George Herbert
While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;
To which the blast of death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust
