Photo by Jeff Creswell

George Herbert

'Love Bade Me Eat'

Born in 1593, the seventh child of ten children, George Herbert lost his father when he was three. He was brought up by his mother in a household of twenty-six in London. She kept livestock in the garden, had the composer William Byrd over for dinner, and made sure that her sons were educated by tutors, summoning her children to their daily devotions with the cry, ‘For God's sake let's go!’

George went on to Westminster School, where his essays were marked by the Dean, the great Lancelot Andrewes, and where he heard about the Gunpowder Plot against the King and Parliament.

Herbert was regarded as brilliant at Cambridge, but his health was poor, and he often lacked the money he needed for books. His cheerful mother married a man half her age, the handsome Sir John Danvers, and set up a second family home in Chelsea, where Herbert used to visit, along with John Donne.

By then Herbert was writing poetry, and he celebrated his mother's ‘wit / And wisdom’ and her ‘spirit bright’ which illuminated the whole house; noting, ‘you taught me how to write’. It is a lovely tribute to a mother.

In the mid-1620s Herbert left Parliament, where he was serving as an MP, and was ordained in the Church of England. Not surprisingly he had not thrived in politics, and he had experienced many unsettling personal losses. Four of his siblings had died, including two brothers in as a result of war in the Low Countries. His early poem "Affliction" describes his depression at 'a world of strife'.

In 1629 Herbert married Jane Danvers, and they moved to Bremerton parish, Wiltshire. The couple opened their doors to his nieces and widowed sister, and Herbert rode round the large parish, dispensing sorely needed charity, legal advice and health care, along with spiritual direction. Though highly educated and witty Herbert unexpectedly believed that priests should teach by example rather than by harranguing parishioners.

As a result his parishioners regarded him as a saint. However, his brother writes, rather more frankly than many relatives, that Herbert was not exempt from passionate anger, "to which all our Race is subject". No goody-two shoes, then.

It hardly seems he had any time to write, but Herbert did manage to play the lute with friends and to write some poetry. And what poetry was.

LOVE BADE ME WELCOME

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.

Images from farming, the trades, science, and everyday household concerns appear in Herbert's poetry. He saw the Lord as a friend, and employed a conversational tone in his poems. He is numbered one of the 'metaphysical' poets, a term first used disparagingly by Samuel Johnson, who disliked the excessive learning evident in some early 17th century poetry. This is not a charge he levelled at Herbert.

During his lifetime hardly anyone read his poetry. After his death his poetry flared in popularity and then sank into obscurity for a century until it was revived in the 20th century by admirers such as TS Eliot John Crowe Ransom, Wallace Stevens, and Hart Crane.

Herbert faced the illness that had drained him for several years with impatience and courage. He did not fear death - by then he had made his peace with God - but he did dislike feeling tired and unwell. Dearly loved by his wife, his nieces, and his friends, he died of tuberculosis in 1633, just before his fortieth birthday.

His friend Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding made sure his writing, which included lyric conversations, allegories, fables, monologues, epigrams, meditations, and prayers, was published. Among them was the quarrel so candidly described in the "The Collar".

THE COLLAR

I will abroad.
What! shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year only lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart; but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures; leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit and not; forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which petty thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away! take heed;
I will abroad.
Call in thy death's-head there; tie up thy fears;
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need
Deserves his load."

But as I rav'd, and grew more fierce and wild
At every word,
Me thought I heard one calling, "Child";
And I replied, "My Lord."

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