Oooh, thank goodness. I can come out of the closet and admit that Mr G*** H*** is a secret vice that I indulge in from time to time when no one else is looking. OK, OK, I don't actually 'buy' the metaphysics in the cold light of day but it is glorious, fiercely intelligent, self-searching and seductive stuff in Mr H's hands. A sort of pre-lapsarian religiosity, before the 19th century got at it and gave it a bad name. And, at his best, he can be spot on the money psychologically. But he's probably not someone you should mention in polite company or be caught reading on the bus.

This particular poem was read, only the only other week, at the funeral of an elderly relative who had particularly requested it during her final weeks. It was very 'her' and worked perfectly and movingly. (Yes, I know 'taste my meat'  means you have to avoid catching anyone else's eye at that point, but that's our fault not Mr H's. In other poems the poor chap suffers also from 'Concorde' conjuring up the wrong image too these days. Grrr.)

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 I then should grow
To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust
Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet though thou troublest me, I must be meek;
In weakness must be stout.
Well, I will change the service, and go seek
Some other master out.
Ah my dear God! though I am clean forgot,
Let me not love thee, if I love thee not.

So did I!

Prayer (I)

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,
        Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
        The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinner's 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 stars heard, the souls bloud,
        The land of spices, something understood.

George Herbert

I better come clean as to why I posted Love III a page back, apart from the fact it was time we had some Herbert.

I wanted to see if someone coming to it with no preconceptions would realise it is a religious work at all.  It is the last in a collection of exclusively religious verse, it crops up in religious anthologies and funerals, RVW sets it as one of Five Mystical Songs, but if you didn't know, would you realise it is a dialogue between a human being and Christ?  But if you didn't know the background of some phrases I doubt it.

I hope SusanDoris will forgive me if she thinks I am guilty of a Jesuitical trick, but since you all rushed in to say it was religious, the experiment was a failure.

Strina mentioned eroticism.  I think it is here, but of a very gentle, unmacho nature.  The two speakers could be two men, two women or a man and a woman.  Is it gentle eroticism without sex? 

And its not a big thing, but since historically George Herbert and Jesus were both male, the poem is homoerotic, like much Christian mysticism.

I like silly poetry from the 19th century (Tennyson, the Brownings). The subject matter of a poem isn't really that important to me. I think a poet (and an artist in general) should be a clown. I don't like "serious" art all. It's all so pompous. A serious philosopher or theologian can be very funny (I always have to laugh out loud when I read Hegel or Marx) but in poetry and literature it irritates me. The most horrible form of literature to me is the realistic novel. Oh, dear: I wasted so much valuable time reading all those dreadful novels. I prefer newspapers, magazines and poetry now and I feel a lot happier.

What a silly girl!