Poems by George Herbert

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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Grief

O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs,

Dwell in my head and eyes: come, clouds and rain:

My grief hath need of all the watry things,

That nature hath produc'd. Let ev'ry vein

Suck up a river to supply mine eyes,

My weary weeping eyes, too drie for me,

Unlesse they get new conduits, new supplies,

To bear them out, and with my state agree.

George Herbert

The Storm

If as the windes and waters here below

Do flie and flow,

My sighs and tears as busy were above;

Sure they would move

And much affect thee, as tempestuous times

Amaze poore mortals, and object their crimes.

Starres have their storms, ev'n in a high degree,

As well as we.

George Herbert

Mortification

How soon doth man decay!

When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets

To swaddle infants, whose young breath

Scarce knows the way;

Those clouts are little winding-sheets,

Which do consigne and send them unto Death.

When boyes go first to bed,

They step into their voluntarie graves;

George Herbert

Sunday

O Day most calm, most bright

The fruit of this, the next world's bud,

Th' endorsement of supreme delight,

Writ by a friend, and with his bloud;

The couch of Time; Care's balm and bay:

The week were dark, but for thy light:

Thy torch doth show the way.

The other dayes and thou

George Herbert

The Windows

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?

He is a brittle crazie glasse;

Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy preacher's; then the light and glorie

George Herbert

Providence

O Sacred Providence, who from end to end

Strongly and sweetly movest! shall I write,

And not of thee, through whom my fingers bend

To hold my quill? shall they not do thee right?

Of all the creatures both in sea and land

Onely to Man thou hast made known thy wayes,

And put the penne alone into his hand,

And made him Secretarie of thy praise.

George Herbert

Man

My God, I heard this day

That none doth build a stately habitation

But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been,

Or can be, than is Man? to whose creation

All things are in decay.

For Man is ev'ry thing,

And more: He is a tree, yet bears more fruit;

George Herbert

The Forerunners

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.

George Herbert

Life

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 beckon 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:

George Herbert

Church-Musick

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure

Did through my bodie wound my minde,

You took me thence; and in your house of pleasure

A daintie lodging me assign'd.

Now I in you without a bodie move,

Rising and falling with your wings:

We both together sweetly live and love,

Yet say sometimes, God help poore Kings.

George Herbert

Bitter-Sweet

Ah, my deare angrie Lord,

Since thou dost love, yet strike;

Cast down, yet help afford;

Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;

I will bewail, approve;

And all my sowre-sweet dayes

I will lament, and love.

George Herbert

The Dawning

Awake, sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns:

Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth,

Unfold thy forehead, gather'd into frowns:

Thy Saviour comes, and with Him mirth:

Awake, awake;

And with a thankful heart his comforts take,

But thou dost still lament, and pine, and crie;

And feel his death, but not his victorie.

George Herbert