greykit.poetry — George Herbert

• 1633 [george-herbert] Easter Wings
  The Temple

  A pattern poem whose lines thin to Most poore and Most thinne and then widen again, so that each stanza is printed in the shape of a wing: the fall itself furthers the flight.

  #lyric#religion#shaped-verse#1630s
• 1633 [george-herbert] Love (III)
  The Temple

  Love keeps house and the guest keeps refusing — guilty of dust and sin, unworthy to look, fit only to serve — and every refusal is quietly answered, until: So I did sit and eat.

  #lyric#religion#grace#1630s
• 1633 [george-herbert] The Collar
  The Temple

  A tantrum in verse — the speaker strikes the board, swears he will abroad, and rages at his rope of sands in lines that break their own metre — until one word, calling Childe, ends it: And I reply’d, My Lord.

  #lyric#religion#rebellion#1630s
• 1633 [george-herbert] The Pulley
  The Temple

  God pours every blessing on man but keeps back rest, so that weariness itself will do the work goodness might not — a restlessness engineered to toss him at last to God’s breast.

  #lyric#religion#restlessness#1630s
• 1633 [george-herbert] Vertue
  The Temple

  Day, rose and spring are each praised and then sentenced in the same breath — for thou must die — until only the seasoned timber of a virtuous soul is left standing when the whole world turns to coal.

  #lyric#religion#mortality#1630s