“Thus he lived and thus he died, like a Saint, unspotted of the world, full of alms-deeds, full of humility, and all the examples of a virtuous life . . .”
Of how many poets could this be truly written? All the evidence suggests George Herbert was a genuinely good man, not a fire-breather but a humble soul. In The March of Literature (1939), Ford Madox Ford calls him “a gentle hymnalist” and praises his “wonderfully lucid simplicities.” In A Man Could Stand Up (1926), the third novel in Ford’s World War I tetralogy Parade’s End, his protagonist, Christopher Tietjens, meditates on Herbert. He describes another officer as a “fellow [who] spread seventeenth-century atmosphere across the landscape over which the sun’s rays were beginning to flood a yellow wash.” Ford continues: “What had become of the seventeenth century? And Herbert and Donne and Crashaw and Vaughan, the Silurist? . . . Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky!” That final sentence consists of the opening lines of Herbert’s "Virtue."
The passage quoted at the
top is from The Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670) by the poet’s friend
Izaak Walton, best known for The Compleat Angler. Herbert died on this
date, March 1, in 1633. On the Sunday before his death, Walton tells us Herbert
called for his lyre, tuned it, and played and sang a verse from his own “Sunday”:
“The Sundaies of mans life,
Thredded together on times
string,
Make bracelets to adorn
the wife
Of the eternall glorious
King.
On Sunday heavens gate
stands ope:
Blessings are plentifull
and rife,
More plentifull then hope.”
The next day, Herbert made
his will. He left everything to his wife except for a Bible commentary bequeathed
to one of his curates and his copy of St. Augustine to the other. In Music
at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (2014), John Drury describes
St. Augustine as “Herbert’s favourite and most congenial theologian, the
philosopher of love and the author of the autobiographical Confessions which
were a stimulus for Herbert’s autobiographical poetry.” Drury writes:
“He then said he was ready
to die, and with the words ‘Lord, now receive my soul’ expired ‘without any
apparent disturbance.’ He was a month short of his fortieth birthday.”
In his poem “Death,” Herbert speaks to death as though it were his sick neighbor, now recovering, or a friend long out of touch. The poem concludes with a typically homely image:
“Therefore we can go die
as sleep, and trust
Half that we have
Unto
an honest faithfull grave;
Making our pillows either
down, or dust.”
1 comment:
I couldn't comment yesterday; I was busy taking a new job. (Sort of crazy at the advanced age of 63, but they came to me.) I am wondering if this entry was purposely written in anticipation of Ash Wednesday, the morning that I am writing this comment? In any case, I thank you for it. I have three Lenten observances this year: read the Confessions (for the first time, I am ashamed to admit); read the Divine Comedy all the way through (I've never made it to Paradiso); and begin a journey to re-attain some ability to converse in Spanish (I am enrolled as part of my new work obligations). To all a happy Lent. Because I do not hope to turn again...
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