Winged Life

10 Apr 2024 | Holy Spirit | 0 comments

My tender Age in sorrow did begin

And still with sicknesses and shame

Thou didst so punish sin

That I became

Most thin.

 

With thee

Let me combine,

And feel this day thy victory:

For if I imp (graft) my wing on thine,

Affliction shall advance the flight  in me.

 

George Herbert (1593-1633), ‘Easter Wings’, The Temple, 1633.

 

 

Notes from the Compiler

George Herbert's recent biographer, John Drury, writes, 'It is a pattern poem, crafted to look like the wings of birds flying eastward across the page to the rising sun.' On his deathbed, Herbert was reported to have sent a message saying the reader would find in his poems, 'a picture of the many spiritual Conflicts that have past between God and my Soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master: in whose service I have now found perfect freedom.'

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