His chiefest recreation was Musick, in which heavenly Art he was a most excellent Master, and did himself compose many divine Hymns and Anthems, which he set and sung to his Lute or Viol; and though he was a lover of retiredness, yet his love to Musick was such, that he went usually twice every week on certain appointed days, to the Cathedral Church in Salisbury; and at his return would say, That his time spent in Prayer, and Cathedral Musick, elevated his Soul, and was his Heaven upon Earth: But before his return thence to Bemerton, he would usually sing and play his part, at an appointed private Musick-meeting; and, to justifie this practice, he would often say, Religion does not banish Mirth, but only moderates, and sets rules to it.
IZAAK WALTON: The Life of Mr George Herbert (1670)
Herbert’s mother, Lady Magdalen, a friend and patron of John Donne, influenced her son in his decision to distance himself from court life and embrace the Church. If Donne gave her some of his manuscript poems – which is not unlikely – Herbert would almost certainly have read them. He had many influential friends at court, including Francis Bacon, and in 1614, aged twenty-two, he was elected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Although in 1624 and 1625 he represented Montgomery, the town of his birth, in Parliament, he abandoned his worldly ambitions, was ordained deacon, and in 1526 was installed as a canon in Lincoln Cathedral. On the death of his mother in 1627, he poured out his heart in a set of Latin poems to her memory: Memoriae Matris Sacrum. In 1629 he married Jane Danvers, and a year later became rector of Bemerton, near Salisbury. Known to his contemporaries as ‘holy George Herbert’, he rejoiced in his work: ‘The Countrey Parson preacheth constantly, the Pulpit is his joy and his throne.’ His piety is reflected in his decision to take two recently orphaned nieces into his family. Like John Donne, he consciously prepared himself for death: Izaak Walton tells us that he sang on his death-bed ‘such Hymns and Anthems, as the Angels and he now […] sing in Heaven’. As he lay dying of consumption just short of his fortieth birthday, he sent a manuscript of his English poems to Edmond Duncon, writing:
Sir, I pray deliver this little Book to my dear brother Farrer, and tell him, he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual Conflicts that have past betwixt God and my Soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master; in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it: and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor Soul, let it be made publick: if not, let him burn it: for I and it, are less than the least of God’s mercies.
There is a stained-glass window in Bemerton church showing Nicholas Ferrar holding the manuscript of The Temple, which had been entrusted to him for publication. The poems were published as The Temple in 1633, and have been admired ever since for the directness of their religious fervour, their rhythmic subtleties and the power and complexity of their imagery. Of the 169 poems in The Temple, no fewer than 100 have their own individual stanza form. There were thirteen editions of The Temple between 1633 and 1679, after which Herbert’s popularity began to wane. A new edition appeared in 1799, but it was Coleridge’s article on Herbert in Biographia Literaria (1817) that encouraged a revival of interest in his poetry.
The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed:
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grasse,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently passe:
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my minde in frame2:
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.
Yea, in deaths shadie black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me; and thy rod
To guide, thy staffe to bear.
Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev’n in my enemies sight:
My head with oyl, my cup with wine
Runnes over day and night.
Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my dayes;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.
King of Glorie, King of Peace,
I will love thee:
And that love may never cease,
I will move thee.
Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me:
Thou didst note my working breast,
Thou hast spar’d me.
Though my sinnes against me cried,
Thou didst cleare me;
And alone, when they replied,
Thou didst heare me.
Sev’n whole dayes, not one in seven,
I will praise thee.
In my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.
Thou grew’st soft and moist with tears,
Thou relentedst:
And when Justice call’d for fears
Thou dissentedst.
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee:
Not rudely1, as a beast,
To runne into an action
But still to make thee prepossest2,
And give it his perfection.
A man that looks on glasse
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
And then the heav’n espie.
All may of thee partake:
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with his tincture3 (for thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause4
Makes drudgerie divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th’action fine.
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold:
For that which God doth touch5 and own
Cannot for lesse be told.
Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcinèd1 thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His streched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long;
Or since all musick is but three parts vied2,
And multiplied,
O let Thy blessed spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.
(Rubbra)
I got me flowers to straw Thy way;3
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.
The Sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, th’ East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many Sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkinde,1 ungratefull? Ah my deare,
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, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:2
So I did sit and eat.
Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.
Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.
Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joyes in love.
Cho.
Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.
Vers.
The heavn’s are not too high,
His praise may thither flie:
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.
Cho.
Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.
Vers.
The church with psalms must shout,
No doore can keep them out:
But above all, the heart
Must bear the longest part.2
Cho.
Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.
(Harwood)