by Neil Elliot
What have the hymns “Let all the world in every corner sing” and “King of Glory, King of peace” got in common? They are both settings of poems by George Herbert, much loved by churchgoers around the world. But they are not the best of Herbert. The poems in this collection will lift you to the heights of heaven and show you the depths of your own soul. Herbert’s work is simply unmissable. It has a simplicity of form that implies a simplicity of content. In actuality, simple verse that is not doggerel is hard to write, and Herbert's verse has layer upon layer of profundity.
Herbert is another convert, like St Paul, St Augustine, St Francis, etc. He had a profound change of heart in adult life and turned from the pursuit of fame and fortune at the Kings court, to priesthood in a rural parish. His surviving work is completely religious. He was a contemporary of Milton, Donne and the metaphysical poets, and was a particular influence on TS Eliot.
Having an English teacher for a mother is probably the reason that I encountered Herbert, but none of the above is the reason that I love Herbert's work so much. It is the powerful tenderness with which he writes that draws me. His work implicitly portrays like no other author the Christ whom I know and love and seek to follow and emulate. There is nothing pompous or harsh about his work. Each poem is a sermon on the theme of love, and none more so than the third of his poems called Love. Here was my call to find a God who accepts me as I am. Here is the Gospel, which I hope I proclaim.
Love (III)
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd 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, the 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.
