sir, open that door, then look into that cabinet, in which you may easily find my last will, and give it into my hand:’ which being done, Mr. Herbert delivered it into the hand of Mr. Woodnot, and said, ‘My old friend, I here deliver you my last will, in which you will find that I have made you sole executor for the good of my wife and nieces; and I desire you to show kindness to them, as they shall need it. I do not desire you to be just, for I know you will be so for your own sake; but I charge you, by the religion of our friendship, to be careful of them.’ And having obtained Mr. Woodnot’s promise to be so, he said, ‘I am now ready to die.’ After which words, he said, ‘Lord, forsake me not, now my strength faileth me; but grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord—Lord, now receive my soul!’ And with these words he breathed forth his divine soul, without any apparent disturbance, Mr. Woodnot and Mr. Bostock attending his last breath, and closing his eyes.”
So died George Herbert. Let our last hope be that of his artless and affectionate biographer—“If God shall be so pleased, may I be so happy as to die like him!”
The Temple was published at Cambridge shortly after its anther’s death, with a preface by Nicholas Farrer. It immediately became popular—to such an extent, indeed, that when Walton published his lives, upwards of twenty thousand copies had been sold. Cowley alone enjoyed a greater popularity. But while the works of Cowley are now half forgotten, those of Herbert are still highly esteemed and widely read. And they are worthy of the distinction. The Temple may be disfigured by conceits which may sometimes displease us, and by obscurities which may seem to partake of the mysticism of the later Schoolmen. But our displeasure bears no proportion to the delight with which we contemplate the richness of his fancy and the idiomatio beauties of his language; while the deep devotion with which the poem is instinct warrants us in believing, with Henry Vaughan, that the “holy life and verse” of Herbert did much to divert that “foul and overflowing stream” of impurity by which the literature of Eng-, land was then inundated.
‘More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
A thousand times more exquisitely meet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gale
From fields where good man walk, or bowers wherein they rest.’
WORDSWORTH.”
THE POETRY OF GEORGE HERBERT
I. THE TEMPLE.
THE DEDICATION.
Lord, my first fruits present themselves to thee;
Yet not mine neither: for from thee they came,
And must return. Accept of them and me,
And make us strive, who shall sing best thy name.
Turn their eyes hither, who shall make a gain
Theirs, who shall hurt themselves or me, refrain.
1. THE CHURCH-PORCH.
Perirrhanterium.
THOU, whose sweet youth and early hopes inhance
Thy rate and price, and mark thee for a treasure,
Hearken unto a Verser, who may chance
Ryme thee to good, and make a bait of pleasure:
A verse may finde him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
Beware of lust; it doth pollute and foul
Whom God in baptisme washt with his own blood:
It blots thy lesson written in thy soul;
The holy lines cannot be understood.
How dare those eyes upon a Bible look,
Much lesse towards God, whose lust is all their book!
Abstain wholly, or wed. Thy bounteous Lord
Allows thee choise of paths: take no by-wayes;
But gladly welcome what he doth afford;
Not grudging, that thy lust hath bounds and staies.
Continence hath his joy: weigh both; and so
If rottennesse have more, let Heaven go.
If God had laid all common, certainly
Man would have been th’ incloser: but since now
God hath impal’d us, on the contrarie
Man breaks the fence, and every ground will plough.
O what were man, might he himself misplace!
Sure to be crosse he would shift feet and face.
Drink not the third glasse, which thou canst not tame,
When once it is within thee; but before
Mayst rule it, as thou list: and poure the shame,
Which it would poure on thee, upon the floore.
It is most just to throw that on the ground,
Which would throw me there, if I keep the round.
He that is drunken, may his mother kill
Bigge with his sister: he hath lost the reins,
Is outlaw’d by himself: all kinde of ill
Did with his liquor slide into his veins.
The drunkard forfets Man, and doth devest
All worldly right, save what he hath by beast.
Shall I, to please anothers wine-sprung minde,
Lose all mine own? God hath giv’n me a measure
Short of his canne, and bodie; must I finde
A pain in that, wherein he findes a pleasure?
Stay at the third glasse: if thou lose thy hold,
Then thou art modest, and the wine grows bold.
If reason move not Gallants, quit the room;
(All in a shipwrack shiit their severall way)
Let not a common ruine thee
