Sunday Morning Poetry: George Herbert
(Long ago, in a cyber world that seems very far away now, I kept a blog with a weekly dose of poetry. Recently I happened across a posting of this George Herbert poem – one of my all time favorites – on the blog of Caleb Maskell and it inspired me to take up the habit again. I think it particularly appropriate given my current mood and the series I’ll be writing later this week. Enjoy.)
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The Collar
I Struck the board, and cry’d, No more.
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, 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 drie it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
Have I no bayes 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 pettie 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 deaths 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 wilde
At every word,
Me thoughts I heard one calling, Childe:
And I reply’d, My Lord.
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A few lines perhaps require some explanation. “The board” is likely the eating table (as in “room and board”). He is angry and frustrated. This is a clergyman on a rant (“The Collar” – Herbert was an Anglican Priest), ready to quit his profession for a perceived lack of success (“Have I no harvest but a thorn?”). Whatever fruit he has enjoyed (“wine” and “corn”) has been totally overwhelmed by hardship (“Before my sighs did die it/Before my tears did drown it”). The phrase “Rope of sands” refers, I think, to a realization of the utter futility of his beliefs and structures. The rant climaxes with the gentle whisper of God in his ear, at which he eagerly returns to his beloved.
