Love (III) by George Herbet

Love invites Poet to a meal.

Love (III) by George Herbet

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.

Poem Analysis: 

George Herbert’s Love (III), is a simple as well as complex poem that displays the depth of Herbert’s writing. The 3 stanza poem of six lines was released on 1633, concludes the central section of “The temple”. With a rhyming pattern of ABABCC, along with alternating lines of 10 to 6 syllables, the theme of the poem is clear: “Love”. The poet seems to be narrating an event that occurred, yet writing it in present tense, formatting the poem as a dialogue. Although Herbert is quite famous for his “Shape-poems”, “Love III” doesn’t seems to be written as one.

The event appears to be a meeting between the poet and “Love”, who is being personified in many ways like “quick-eyed”, “sweet smiling”, showing that it is confident, and even romantic. However, the poet finds himself unworthy of Love’s presence as his “soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin”. This feeling of finding himself “undeserving” of Love’s presence, forces us to accept Love to be a worshiper or God. This is confirmed by line 6 in stanza 2, when Love replied “Who made these eyes but I?” as the guest called himself unkind, and ungrateful. Love’s response shows that he/she accepts the Guest’s flaw and invites himself to dinner yet again, “You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat”, and the dinner is accepted by the poet.

Surprisingly, the entire poem is set as a metaphor. The house in which the poet is invited to, is set as Heaven and Love is God himself. When Love invited the guest to a meal, it is considered to be God inviting the poet to acceptance, to offer love. However, the feelings of the poet being unworthy, aren’t metaphors. The “guest” is convinced to join the Communion by God and his sins are washed off.

This poem shows Herbert’s denotation to God and Christianity, but at the same time it shows that he is aware of his blemishes as a man full of sins.

Research Content:

George Herbet was born on April 3, 1593, to a wealthy Welsh family as the 5^th son. His father died when he was three, leaving his mother with ten children, all of whom she was determined to educate and raise as loyal Anglicans. Herbet was educated in London and Cambridge. In his first two poems in 1610, Herbert argued that the love of God is a proper subject for poetry. He resigned as orator in 1627, married Jane Danvers in 1629, and took holy orders in the Church of England in 1630. During his time there, he preached, wrote poetry, and also helped rebuild the church out of his own funds. While On his deathbed, he sent the manuscript of The Temple to his close friend, Nicholas Ferrar, asking him to publish the poems only if he thought they might do well to “any dejected poor soul.” He died of consumption in 1633 at the age of forty and the book was published in the same year. By 1690, the book went through 30 editions.

He was widely regarded as the greatest devotional poet in the English Language. Herbert wrote poetry in the 3 languages, English, Latin and Greek. In his poems in, The temple, he imitates the church’s architectural style beautifully by words and their visual layout. All his poems are under the themes of God as well as Love, and many containing complex rhyme schemes. “The Alter” & “The windows” are examples of Herbert’s religious works. Due to these themes some of Herbert’s remaining poems are used as hymns, and the person to do so was John Wesley.

Being a collector of proverbs, like many of his friends, his “Outlandish Proverbs” was released on 1640. Although it was written in English, it was gathered by many countries. Proverbs such as “His bark is worse than his bite” is still used up to this date, was born inside that book.