Holy Week Poetry 2016, Maundy Thursday: “Love (III)” by George Herbert

Bookends, that’s what we’ve got here. Where Monday’s poem “The Altar” was the opening of George Herbert’s collection of poetry The Temple (1633), today’s poem is the final lyric of Herbert’s book. It’s the third poem titled “Love” and presents both Love and the Lord as one and the same. Because of that, this poem fits nicely on Maundy Thursday. Many scholars believe that the word “Maundy” came from the Latin “mandatum,” specifically from Jesus’ teaching in John 13:34: Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos or “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you.”

The scene is dinner: Love hosts, and the speaker, the guest, hesitates. With Love as the warm, welcoming, and encouraging host,and thinking of how comforting and nourishing it can be to share a meal, it’s tempting to see a maturing trajectory from the first poem, “The Altar,” to this last one. In “The Altar” the speaker tells the Lord that the speaker’s heart is an altar and hopes it will be accepted. In “Love (III)” the relationship is more interactive, and speaker’s self-conscious offering in “The Altar” has changed to a self-conscious awareness of unworthiness and even failure. It may be tempting to see such a trajectory across the two poems, but the comfort level of the speaker as guest is still ambiguous by the end of the poem. And probably rightfully so–just what is it to break bread with the Lord? Enjoy this poem on Maundy Thursday, the day commemorating the Last Supper.

Love (III)

by George Herbert

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back

                              Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

                             From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

                             If I lacked any thing.

 

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

                             Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

                             I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

                             Who made the eyes but I?

 

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

                             Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

                             My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

                             So I did sit and eat.

 

 

Holy Week Poetry 2016, Holy Monday: “The Altar” by George Herbert

Today’s poem comes from George Herbert‘s collection, The Temple.

Born into a wealthy family and receiving a good education in rhetoric, languages, and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert (1593-1633) was popular. He served in Parliament briefly and was noticed by King James I. But Herbert died when he was not quite 40 years old, and this collection of his poems, The Temple, was only published after his death. It shows his emotional, spiritual, and mental wrestle with his faith. When the manuscript was sent to the printer, Nicholas Ferrar, Herbert is said to have explained, “he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master.” Herbert also instructed Ferrar, the printer, to print the poems if they might be of some help to another spiritual seeker; otherwise he should burn them. Clearly, Ferrar deemed the poems useful.

 

Architectural themes run throughout The Temple, and the main section of the sequence starts off with this poem: “The Altar,” comparing an altar of stone to the altar of the speaker’s heart. As you can also see, Herbert makes the physical structure obvious by shaping the poem as an altar. But he doesn’t just make the words in to that shape. He adjusts the length of the rhymed lines to match the varying lengths of the lines as they outline the shape of the altar. Put another way, the middle lines are much shorter, more compact rhymes because they have to be a skinnier shape.

 

I thought “The Altar” would be appropriate for this day when Jesus is said to have cleansed the temple in Jerusalem and cast out the money changers.

 

The Altar

A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch’d the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.