Providence.

Bees work for man; and yet they never bruise

Their master’s flower, but leave it, having done,

As fair as ever, and as fit to use;

So both the flower doth stay, and honey run….

O sacred Providence, who from end to end

Strongly and sweetly movest, shall I write,

And not of thee, through whom my fingers bend

To hold my quill? Shall they not do thee right?

Of all the creatures both in sea and land

Only to man hast thou made known thy ways,

And put the pen alone into his hand,

And made him secretary of thy praise.

Beasts fain would sing; birds dittie to their notes;

Trees would be tuning on their native lute

To thy renown; but all their hands and throats

Are brought to man, while they are lame and mute.

Man is the world’s high priest: he doth present

The sacrifice of all….

                       The Elixir

 Teach me, my God and King,

All things thee to see,

And what I do in any thing,

To do it as for thee:

Not rudely, as a beast,

To run into an action;

But still to make thee prepossessed,

And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espie.

All may of thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with this tincture (for thy sake)

Will not grow bright and clean

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgery divine:

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that and the action fine.

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

            The Holy Scriptures 

Oh Book! Infinite sweetness! Let my heart

Suck every letter, and a honey gain,

Precious for any grief in any part;

To clear the breast, to mollify all pain.

Thou art all health, health thriving till it make

A full eternity: thou art a mass

Of strange delights, where we may wish and take.

Ladies, look here; this is the thankful glass,

That mends the looker’s eyes: this is the well

That washes what it shows. Who can endear

Thy praise too much? Thou art heaven’s Ledger here,

Working against the states of death and hell.

Thou art joy’s handsell:[3] heaven lies flat in thee,

Subject to every mounter’s bended knee.

                        Prayer 

Of what unmeasurable love

Art thou possessed, who, when thou could’st not die,

Were fain to take our flesh and curse,

And for our sakes sin person sin reprove,

That by destroying that which tied thy purse,

Thou mightiest make way for liberality!

                        The Agonie

Who knows not love, let him assay

And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike

Did set again abroach; then let him say

If ever did he taste the like.

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine

Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

                        Man

My God, I heard this day,

That none doth build a stately habitation,

But he that means to dwell therein.

What house more stately hath there been,

Or can be, than is Man? To whose creation

All things are in decay.

For man is ev’ry thing,

And more….

Since then, my God, thou hast

So brave a Palace built; O dwell in it,

That it may dwell with thee at last!

Till then, afford us so much wit;

That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee,

And both thy servants be.

                        Sin (I)

Lord, with what care hast thou begirt us round!

Parents first season us: then schoolmasters

Deliver us to laws; they send us bound

To rules of reason, holy messengers,

Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,

Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,

Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,

Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,

Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,

The sound of glory ringing in our ears:

Without, our shame; within our consciences;

Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array

One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

                        Business

Canst be idle? Canst thou play,

Foolish soul who sinned today?

Hast thou tears, or hast thou none?

If poor soul, thou hast no tears,

Would thou hadst no faults or fears!

Who in heart not ever kneels,

Neither sin nor Saviour feels.

                        Sinnes round

Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am,

That my offences course it in a ring.

My thoughts are working like a busy flame,

Until their cockatrice they hatch and bring:

And when they once have perfected their drafts,

My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts….

But words suffice not, where are lewd intentions:

My hands do join to finish the inventions:

And so my sins ascend three stories high,

As Babel grew, before there were dissensions.

Yet ill deeds loiter not: for they supply

New thoughts of sinning: wherefore, to my shame,

Sorry I am, my God, sorry I am.

The Pearl

I know the ways of Pleasure, the sweet strains,

The lullings and the relishes of it;

The propositions of hot blood and brains;

What mirth and music mean; what love and wit

Have done these twenty hundred years, and more:

I know the projects of unbridles store….

                                                            Bitter-sweet

Ah my dear angry Lord,

Since thou dost love, yet strike;

Cast down, yet help afford;

Sure I will do the like.

I will complain, yet praise;

I will bewail, approve;

And all my sour sweet days

I will lament, and love.

5. The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting

                        Redemption.

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,

Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,

And make a suit unto him, to afford

A new small-rented lease, and cancel the old.

In heaven at his manor I him sought:

They told me there, that he was lately gone

About some land, which he had dearly bought

Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,

Sought him accordingly in great resorts;

In cities, theatres, gardens and parks, and courts:

At length I heard a ragged sound and mirth

Of thieves and murderers: there I him espied,

Who straight, ‘Your suit is granted,’ said, and died.

                        Love (III)

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 anything.

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.

                        The Flower

            How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers of spring;

            To which, beside their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

                        Grief melts away

                        Like snow in May,

            As if there were no such thing.

            Who would have thought my shrivelled heart

Could have recovered greenness? It was gone

            Quite underground; as flowers depart

To see their mother root, when they have blown;

                        Where they together

                        All the hard weather,

            Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

            These are thy wonders, Lord of power,

Killing and quicke`ning, bringing down to hell

            And up to heaven in an hour;

Making a chiming of a passing-bell.

                        We say amiss,

                        This or that is:

            Thy word is all, if we could spell….

            And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write:

            I once more smell the dew and rain,

And relish versing: O my only light,

                        It cannot be

                        That I am he

            On whom thy tempests fell all night….

                        Gratefulness

Thou hast given so much to me,

Give one thing more, a grateful heart.

See how thy beggar works on thee

By art.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again;

And in no quiet canst thou be,

Till I a thankful heart obtain

Of thee:

Not thankful when it pleaseth me;

As if thy blessings had spare days:

But such a heart whose pulse may be

Thy praise.

6. Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living

                        Love (III)

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 anything.

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.

                       Affliction (I)

When first thou didst entice to thee my heart,

I thought the service brave:

So many joys I writ down for my part,

Besides what I might have

Out of my stock of natural delights,

Augmented with thy gracious benefits….

Now I am here, what thou wilt do with me

None of my books will show:

I read, and sigh, and wish I were a tree;

For sure then I should grow

To fruit or shade: at least some bird would trust

Her household to me, and I should be just.

Yet, though thou troublest me, I must be meek;

In weakness must be stout.

Well, I will change the service, and go seek

Some other master out.

Ah my dear God! Though I am clean forgot,

Let me love thee, if I love thee not.

                        A Wreath

A wreathed garland of deserved praise,

Of praise, deserved unto thee I give,

I give to thee, who knowest all my ways,

My crooked winding ways, wherein I live,

Wherein I die, not live; for life is straight,

Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,

To thee, who art more far above deceit,

Than deceit seems above simplicity.

Give me simplicity, that I may live,

So live and like, that I may know thy ways,

Know them and practise them; then shall I give

For this poor wreath, give thee a crown of praise.

7. Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience

The Windows

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?

He is a brittle crazy glass:

Yet in the temple thou dost him afford

This glorious and transcendent place,

To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,

Making thy life to shine within

The holy preachers; then the light and glory

More reverend grows, & more doth sin:

Which else shows waterish, bleak & thin.

Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one

When they combine and mingle, bring

A strong regard and aw: but speech alone

Doth vanish like a flaring thing,

And in the ear, not conscience ring.

Whitsunday

Listen sweet Dove unto my song,

And spread thy golden wings in me;

Hatching my tender heart so long

Till it get wing, and fly away with thee

Where is that fire which once descended

On the Apostles? Thou didst then

Keep open house, richly attended,

Feasting all comers by twelve chosen men…

But since those pipes of gold, which brought

The cordial water to our ground,

Were cut and martyred by the fault

Of those, who did through their side wound,

Thou shutt’st the door, and keep’st within;

Scarce a good joy creeps through the chink:

And if the braves of conquering sin

Did not excite thee, we should wholly sink.

Lord, though we change, thou art the same;

The same sweet God of love and light:

Restore  this day, for thy great name,

Unto his ancient and miraculous right.

8. Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful

King of Glory, King of Peace,

I will love thee:

And that love may never cease,

I will move thee.

Thou hast granted my request,

Thou hast heard me:

Thou didst not my working breast,

Thou hast spared me.

Wherefore with my utmost art

I will sing thee,

And the cream of all my heart

I will bring thee.

Though my sins against me cried,

Thou didst clear me;

And alone, when they replied,

Thou didst hear me.

Seven whole days, not one in seven,

I will praise thee,

In my heart, though not in heaven,

I can raise thee.

Thou grew’st soft and moist with tears,

Thou relentedst:

And when Justice called for fears,

Thou dissentedst.

Small it is, in this poor sort

To enrol thee:

E’en eternity’s too short

To extoll thee.

                        The Call.

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:

Such a Way, as gives us breath:

Such a truth, as ends all strife:

Such a Life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength:

Such a Light, as shows a feast:

Such a Feast, as mends in length:

Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:

Such a Joy, as none can move:

Such a Love, as none can part:

Such a Heart, joys in love.

Prayer

Top of Form

Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;

Engine against the almighty, sinners’ tower,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

9. The Church: Provisional but Necessary

                        The British Church

A fine aspect in fit array,

Neither too mean, nor yet too gay,

Shows who is best.

Outlandish looks may not compare:

For all they either painted are,

Or else undressed.

She on the hills, which wantonly

Allureth all in hope to be

By her preferred

Hath kissed so long her painted shrines,

The e’en her face by kissing shines,

For her reward.

She in the valley is so shy

Of dressing, that her hair doth lie

About her ears:

While she avoids her neighbours pride,

She wholly goes on th’other side,

And nothing wears.

The Temple

O gracious Lord, how shall I know

Whether in these gifts thou be so

As thou art every-where;

Or rather so, as thou alone

Tak’st all the lodging, leaving none

For thy poor creature there?

First I am sure, whether bread stay

Or whether bread do fly away

Concerneth bread, not me.

But that thou and all thy train

Be there, to thy truth and my gain,

Concerneth me and thee.

The Church Porch

Though private prayer be a brave design,

Yet public hath more promises, more love:

And love’s a weight to hearts, to eyes a sign.

We all are but cold suitors; let us move

Where it is warmest. Leave thy six and seven;

Pray with the most: for where most pray, is heaven.

When once thy foot enters the church, be bare.

God is more there, than thou: for thou art there

Only his permission. Then beware,

And make thyself all reverence and fear.

Kneeling ne’er spoiled silk stocking: quit thy state,

All equal are within the churches gate.

Resort to sermons, but prayers the most:

Praying’s the end of preaching….

In time of service seal up both thine eyes,

And send them to thine heart; that spying sin,

They may weep out the stains by them did rise:

Those doors being shut, all by the ear comes in.

Who marks in church-time other symmetry,

Makes all their beauty his deformity.

Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part:

Bring not thy plough, thy plots thy pleasures thither.

Christ purged his temple; so must thou thy heart.

All worldly thoughts are but thieves met together

To cozen thee.[4] Look to thy actions well:

For churches are either our heaven or hell.

Judge not the preacher; for he is thy Judge

If thou mislike him, thou conceivs’t him not.

God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge

To pick out treasures from an earthen pot.

The worst speak something good: if all want sense,

God takes a text, and preacheth patience.

He that gets patience, and the blessing which

Preachers conclude with, has not lost his pains.

He that by being at church escapes the ditch,

Which he might fall in by companions, gains.

He that loves God’s abode, and to combine

With saints on earth, shall one day with them shine.

Jest not at preachers’ language, or expression:

How know’st thou, but thy sins made him miscarry?

Then turn thy faults and his into confession:

God sent him, whatsoe’re he be: O tarry,

And love him for his Master: his condition,

Though it be ill, makes him no ill Physician.

                                A true hymn

…The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords,

Is, when the soul unto the lines accords.

He who craves all the mind,

And all the soul, and strength, and time,

If the words only rhyme,

Justly complains, that somewhat is behind

To make his verse, or write a hymn in kind.

Whereas if the heart be moved,

Although the verse be somewhat scant,

God doth supply the want.

As when the heart says (sighing to be approved)

O, could I love! And stops: God writeth, Loved!

                        The Holy Communion

O gracious Lord, how shall I know

Whether in these gifts thou be so

As thou art everywhere;

Or rather so, as thou alone

Tak’st all the lodging, leaving none

For thy poor creature there?

First I am sure, whether bread stay

Or whether Bread do fly away

Concerneth bread, not me.

That both thou and all thy train

Be there, to thy truth, and my gain,

Concerneth me and Thee….

This gift of all gifts is the best,

Thy flesh the least that I request.

Thou took’st that pledge for me:

Give me not that I had before,

Or give me that, so I have more;

My God, give me all Thee.

Peace

There was a Prince of old

At Salem dwelt, who lived with good increase

Of flock and fold.

He sweetly liv’d: yet sweetness did not save

His life from foes.

But after his death out of his grave

There sprang twelve storks of wheat:

Which many wond’ring at, got some of those

To plant and set.

It prospered strangely, and did soon disperse

Through all the earth:

For they that do taste it do rehearse,

That virtue lies therein,

A secret virtue bringing peace and mirth

By flight of sin.

Take of this grain, which in my garden grows,

And grows for you;

Make bread of it: and that repose

And peace, which every where

With so much earnestness you do pursue,

Is only there.

                                    Aaron

Holiness on the head,

Light and perfections on the breast,

Harmonious bells below, raising the dead

To lead them into life and rest:

Thus are true Aarons drest.

Profaneness in my head,

Defects and darknesse in my breast,

A noise of passions ringing me for dead

Unto a place where is no rest:

Poore priest thus am I drest.

Only another head,

I have, another heart and breast,

Another musick, making live not dead,

Without whom I could have no rest:

In him I am well drest.

Christ is my only head,

My alone only heart and breast,

My only musick, striking me even dead;

That to the old man I may rest,

And be in him new drest.

So holy in my head,

Perfect and light in my deare breast,

My doctrine tuned by Christ, who is not dead,

But lives in me while I do rest,

Come people; Aaron’s drest.

10. The Mission of God

                        Praise (III)

            Lord, I will mean and speak thy praise,

Thy praise alone.

My busy heart shall spin it all my days:

And when it stops for want of store

Then will I wring it with a sigh or groan,

That thou may’st yet have more.

When thou dost favour any action,

It runs, it flies:

All things concur to give it a perfection.

That which had but two legs before,

When thou dost bless, hath twelve: one wheel doth rise

To twenty then, or more….

Wherefore I sing. Yet since my heart,

Though pressed, runs thin;

O that I might some other hearts convert,

And so take up at use good store:

That to thy chest there might be coming in

Both all my praise, and more!

11. A Vision of God’s Kingdom

                                Antiphon (I)

Let all the world in every corner sing,

My God and King !

The heavens are not too high,

His praise may thither fly:

The earth is not too low,

His praises there may grow.

Let all the world in every corner sing,

My God and King !

The church with psalms must shout,

No door can keep them out ;

But above all the heart

Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in every corner sing,

My God and King !

                        The Church Militant

Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,

Ready to pass to the American strand.

When height of malice, and prodigious lust,

Impudent sinning, witchcrafts, and distrusts

(The marks of future bane) shall fill our cup

Unto the brimme, and make our measure up….

Then shall Religion to America flee:

They have their times of gospel, ev’n as we.

My God, thou dost prepare for them a way

By carrying first their gold from them away:

For gold and grace did never yet agree:

Religion always sides with poverty.

12. Glory: Now and Then, Here and There

                        The Discharge

Thy life is Gods, thy time to come is gone,

And is his right.

He is thy night at noon: he is at night

Thy noon alone.

The crop is his, for he has sown.

And well it was for thee, when this befell,

That God did make

Thy business his, and in thy life partake:

For thou canst tell,

If it be his once, all is well.

Only the present is thy part and fee.

And happy thou,

If, though thou didst not beat thy future brow,

Thou could’st well see

What present things required of thee.

They ask enough; why should’st thou further go?

Raise not the mud

Of future depths, but drink the clear and good.

Dig not for woe

In times to come; for it will grow.

Man and the present fit: if he provide,

He breaks the square.

This hour is mine: if for the next I care,

I grow too wide,

And encroach upon deaths side.

                        Man’s Medley

Hark, how the birds do sing,

And woods ring.

All creatures have their joy; and man hath his,

Yet if we rightly measure,

Man’s joy and pleasure

Rather hereafter, than in present, is….

Not that he may not here

Taste of the cheer,

But as birds drink, and straight lift up their head,

So he must sip and think

Of better drink

He may attain to, after he is dead.

But as his joys are double;

So is his trouble.

He hath two winters, other things but one

Both frost and thoughts do nip,

And bite his lip;

And he of all things fears two deaths alone.

Yet even the greatest griefs

May be reliefs,

Could he but take them right, and in their ways.

Happy is he, whose heart

Hath found the art

To turn his double pains to double praise.

                        Heaven

O who will show me those delights on high

            Echo; I

Thou echo, thou art mortal, all men know.

Echo. No

Wert thou not born among the trees and leaves?

Echo. Leaves.

And are there any leaves that still abide?

Echo. Bide.

What leaves are they? Impart the matter wholly.

Echo. Holy.

Are holy leaves the echo then of bliss?

Echo. Yes

Then tell me, What is that supreme delight?

Echo. Light.

Light to the mind: What shall the will enjoy?

Echo. Joy.

But are there cares and business with the pleasure?

Echo. Leisure.

Light, joy, and leisure: But shall they persevere?

Echo. Ever.

30.01.2026

[1] Cited in George Herbert: selected by W.H. Auden, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1973, p. 8.

[2] The Poems of George Herbert, ‘The Church: Affliction (I)’, London, Oxford University Press,1961, p. 39-40.

[3] Inaugural gift

[4] deceive