Since his schooling and cleverness matched Donne's, it is no wonder that Herbert wanted to demonstrate his ingenuity in verse like the influential Donne, but with the difference that all the verse would be religious, none secular. Indeed, one metapoetic theme in Herbert's poems, including in some anthologized in NAEL, is how religious poetry could be just as attractive to author and reader as secular poetry. Like Donne's religious verse, Herbert's is authentic and genuine in its feeling, whether the poem is in the plain or cleverly ornate style. By all accounts, Herbert was an exemplar of piety and Christianity after becoming a priest--and of the proverb "the good die young." As Donne and Jonson became the heads or founders of the two principal "schools" of seventeenth-century secular poetry (Donne crossed over with his metaphysical style into religious verse, and Jonson wrote a very few wholly [holy] religious poems, with his neoclassical lucidity, as to be expected : ["To Heaven," the three-poem sequence "The Sinner's Sacrifice: '1. To the Holy Trinity, 2. A Hymn to God the Father, 3. A Hymn on the Nativity of My Savior'"]), so Herbert became the guiding light of the religious metaphysical poets Crashaw and Vaughan (with whom can be grouped Traherne), who in their poetry often allude to Herbert's.

        Along with the 23 poems from Herbert's The Temple anthologized in NAEL6 or 24 poems anthologized in NAEL7 (out of 162, Herbert's total oeuvre, besides 14 others), Herbert ranged in several established ingenious poetic forms (which may be looked up in Harmon and Holman's Handbook to Literature or Cuddon's Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms), including the acrostic, anagram, debat, echo poem, pruning poem, shaped poem, and wreath poem. With all these, including the shaped poems (also called altar poem, calligramme, carmen figuratum*, concrete poem, figure poem, pattern poem) and variations in meter and stanza structure in the NAEL selections, Herbert wanted to demonstrate that wit could be applied to these forms in sacred verse just as well as secular verse. Both in this preoccupation, as well as another one indicated in the introduction to NAEL, one grouping of Herbert's diverse poems becomes the metapoetic. Further, Herbert's poor health, as well as other concerns indicated in the NAEL introduction, provides another grouping of poems: those dealing with suffering.

        Several editions of Herbert's poems, many in paperback or relatively inexpensive hardback, have appeared over the years, and several of these are in print (listed below alphabetically by editor), and well worth owning, since no greater religious poet has ever lived (though some-e.g., John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins-were equally great):

Anonymous [either from the edition by George Herbert Palmer in 1905 and rpt. in 1920, or the edition by Edward Thomas in 1908 and rpt. in 1927], ed. The Works of George Herbert. [Wordsworth Poetry Library.] Hertfordshire, Eng.: Wordsworth Editions, 1994. [223 pp.; all the poems of The Temple, plus table of contents, index of poems, index of first lines, short introduction and sketchy bibliography by Dr. Tim Cook.]

Enright, D. J., ed. George Herbert [Everyman's Poetry series]. London: J. M. Dent, 1996. [102 pp.; pb; on the skimpy side: 100 of the 162 poems of the Temple.]

Hutchinson, F. E., ed. The Works of George Herbert. 1941; rpt. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1964. [619 pp.; hb; the authoritative edition.]

Martz, Louis, ed. George Herbert [Oxford Poetry Library]. London: Oxford UP, 1994. [222 pp.; pb; all the poems and excellent annotation.]

Patrides, C. A., ed. The English Poems of George Herbert. [Everyman's University Library.] 1974; rpt. London: J. M. Dent, 1977. [247 pp.; pb; all the poems and very good annotation.]

Slater, Ann, ed. The Complete English Works by George Herbert. [Everyman's Library.] New York: Alfred Knopf, 1995. [509 pp.; hb; all the poems and very good annotation.]

Summers, Joseph, ed. The Selected Poetry of George Herbert. [Signet Classic Poetry series.] New York: Signet Classics - New American Library, 1967. [288 pp.; pb; all the poems and good annotation.]

Thomas, R. S., ed. A Choice of George Herbert's Verse. 1967; rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1988. [95 pp.; pb; skimpy -- 68 of the poems -- and no annotation.]

Tobin, John, ed. George Herbert: The Complete Poems. [Penguin Classics series.] London: Penguin Books, 1991. [460 pp.; pb; all the poems and very good annotation.]
 

        Numbers given in square brackets, in this handout, indicate the position of the poem in the order given by Herbert in The Temple. Numbers in parentheses within the title of a poem, always given in titles of Herbert's poems, indicate that Herbert wrote more than one poem with the title (e.g., "Jordan (1)" and "Jordan (2)," or "Love (1)," "Love (2)," "Love (3)").

        An outline of the variety of forms or genres (or subgenres) within Herbert's poems, represented either in NAEL or this handout is as follows (arranged alphabetically by poetic form; most of these forms are to be found in HTL):

1. Acrostic ("Colossians 3:3"; handout)

2. Allegory ("Redemption"; NAEL)

3. Anagram ("Ana-Mary/Army-gram"; handout)

4. Debat, dialogue ("A Dialogue-Anthem"; handout)

5. Dramatic monologue ("The Collar"; NAEL)

6. Echo poem ("Heaven"; handout)

7. Figure poem [or, alternatively, altar poem, carmen figuratem, calligramme, carmen figuratem, concrete poem, pattern poem, shaped poem] ("The Altar," "Easter Wings": both in NAEL)

8. Lyric poem (many, including "Jordan (1)," "Denial," and "Virtue," all of which are in NAEL; note how some of these-e.g., "Denial" and "Virtue"--make especially meaningful use of the rhyme scheme or refrain)

9. Pruning poem ("Paradise"; handout)

10. Sonnet ("Redemption," "Prayer (1)," "The Holdfast"; NAEL)

11. Wreath poem ("Discipline": NAEL; "Sin's Round," "A Wreath": handout)

[12.  "Life": poem referred to in the NAEL7 introduction]
 

*  *  *  *  *

1. Acrostic
 

            COLOSS. 3.3

Our life is hid with Christ in God
        [No. 60]
 

My words & thoughts do both express this notion,
That Life hath with the sun a double motion.
The first Is straight, and our diurnal friend,
The other Hid and doth obliquely bend.
One life is wrapt In flesh, and tends to earth.
The other winds towards Him, whose happy birth
Taught me to live here so, That still one eye
Should aim and shoot at that which Is on high:
Quitting    with    daily    labor    all    My  pleasure,
To    gain    at    harvest    an    eternal   Treasure.

2.  Allegory: "Redemption" (in NAEL7)

3. Anagram

        Ana-{MARY}-gram
                 {ARMY}
                 [No. 52]

How well her name an Army doth present,
In whom the Lord of Hosts did pitch his tent!
 

4. Debat, dialogue poem

        A Dialogue-Anthem
            [No. 89]

Christian, Death.

Christian     Alas, poor Death, where is thy glory?
                      Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting?

Death             Alas poor mortal, void of story,
                        Go spell and read how I have killed thy King.

Christian      Poor Death! And who was hurt thereby?
                        Thy curse being laid on him, makes thee accurst.

Death             Let losers talk: yet thou shalt die;
                        These arms shall crush thee.

Christian                                                      Spare not, do thy worst.
                        I shall be one day better than before:
                        Thou so much worse, that thou shalt be no more.

5.  Dramatic Monologue: "The Collar" (in NAEL7)

6. Echo poem

            HEAVEN
            [No. 161]

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 persever?
            Echo.             Ever.
 

7. Figure poem: "The Altar," "Easter Wings" (both in NAEL7)

8. Lyric poem (many in NAEL7)

9. Pruning poem

            PARADISE
            [No. 104]

I bless thee, Lord, because I GROW
Among thy trees, which in a ROW
To thee both fruit and order OW*.                 *orig. spelling

What open force, or hidden CHARM
Can blast my fruit, or bring me HARM
While the inclosure is thine ARM?

Inclose me still for fear I START.
Be to me rather sharp and TART,
Than let me want thy hand and ART.

When you dost greater judgments SPARE,
And with thy knife but prune and PARE,
Ev'n fruitful trees more fruitful ARE.

Such sharpness shows the sweetest FREND*,             *orig. spelling
Such cuttings rather heal than REND:
And such beginnings touch their END.
 

10. Sonnet: "Redemption," "Prayer (1)," "The Holdfast" (all in NAEL7)

11a. Wreath Poem

            SIN'S ROUND
            [No. 94]

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 cocatrice they hatch and bring;
And when they once have perfected their draughts,
My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts.

My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts,
Which spit it forth like the Sicilian hill.
They vent the wares, and passs them with their faults,
And by their breathing ventilate the ill.
But words suffice not, where are lewd intentions:
My hands do join to finish the inventions.

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.
 

11b. Wreath poem

            A WREATH
            [No. 157]

A wreathèd garland of deservèd praise,
Of praise deservèd, 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.
 

12. "Life" (No. 69) [referred to in NAEL7 introduction]

I made a posie*, while the day ran by:                                            *bouquet; poem; poetic motto inside a finger ring
Here will I smell my remnants out, and tie
                                    My life within this band*.                            *bouquet; or finger ring
But time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal way,
                                    And wither'd in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart:
I took, without more thinking, in good part
                                    Time's gentle admonition:
Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
 Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
                                    Yet sug'ring the suspicion.

Farewell, dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
                                    And after death for cures.
I follow straight without cojmplaints or grief,
Since if my scent be good, I care not if
                                    It be as short as yours.
 

Questions on the additional poems, above.

(1) In "Coloss. 3.3: 'Our life is hid with Christ in God'" [No. 60] (acrostic), how is the acrostic form used thematically to parallel the poem's epigraph*? Why not use the first letter or first word acrostic, rather than the acrostic form actually used?

(3) (a) Relative to "Ana-Mary/Army-gram" [No. 52] (anagram), what does the repeated expression "Lord of Hosts" in the Old Testament mean, exactly, and how does it relate to an army? (one of the few drawbacks of the NIV translation of the Bible is the purposeful and announced omission of translating the Hebrew word tsabaot and this recurrent phrase) (b) How, then, would Mary (both person and word) be appropriately related to army (concept and word)? (c) What underlying pun on the word host might the poem contain, and with what significances?

(4) (a) For comparison-contrast to Herbert's "A Dialogue-Anthem" [No. 89] (debat, dialogue poem), one of the most famous examples of this genre or subgenre (representing a debate between opposing views or attitudes) is Andrew Marvell's "A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body" (in NAEL), which you should look up in NAEL. (b) Also for comparison-contrast, look up Donne's Holy Sonnet 10 ("Death Be Not Proud") in NAEL. (c) How is the change in rhyme scheme or pattern of rhymes thematically significant in Herbert's poem?

(6) The allusiveness of "Heaven" [No. 161] results from the mythological figure of Echo and the echo poem usually having been reserved for romantic verse (cf. the entry on echo verse in HTL, with an excerpt); how does Herbert recall and contrast romantic verse in his use of this form?

(9) Part of "Paradise" [No. 104] (pruning poem) is quoted in HTL to exemplify the entry on "pruning poem." How do the metaphor of pruning, the successive pruning of a letter in each stanza, and the poem's religious ideas coincide or cooperate? How might the triplet stanza be thematic? How does the poem have greater resonance when the reader considers that Herbert was often in ill health, which culminated in his early death? How might this fact resonate in other of Herbert's poems, including those read in this course?

(11b) Compare Herbert's "A Wreath" [No. 157] (wreath poem) with Andrew Marvell's religious poem "The Coronet," studying how the wreath form helps express the poem's ideas. How does Herbert use anadiplosis in his poem, and how might he be recalling and contrasting the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney with this device?
 

Questions on Herbert Poems in NAEL

N & Q on "The Altar" (NAEL7 #1; Temple #1)

1. Why might Herbert have selected this poem as appropriate for the first poem of his collection?
 

N & Q on "Redemption" (NAEL7 #2; Temple #8)

1. True allegory, the elaborate and consistent set of correspondences between one set of terms and another, is rare in literature, but found in this poem. How does each vehicle* stand for its particular tenor*?

2. (a) Like Donne in his Holy Sonnets, how might Herbert be making allusively contrasting use of the form in this sonnet? How might the religious poets be contrasting secular, romantic sonnets with their religious ones? (b) How is the Italian form overlaid on the English form in this sonnet?

3. How do lines 3-4 allude to the Old and New Testaments, respectively? Where and how does Paul discuss this issue in the New Testament?

N & Q on "Easter" (NAEL7 #3; Temple #10)
 

N & Q on "Easter Wings" (NAEL7 #4; Temple #11)

1. In this poem, the most famous shaped poem in English, how do the concepts of expansion and contraction work (a) in each line, (b) in the succession of lines, and (c) in each stanza?

2. How do the pictorial shape of the poem, several of its particular metaphors, the occasion, and the Christian concept of heaven all relate to rising or flying?

3. As mentioned above, Herbert was often in ill health, culminating in his premature death; where does this poem resonate with that autobiographical background?

N & Q on "Affliction (1)" (NAEL7 #5; Temple #16)
 

N & Q on "Prayer (1)" (NAEL7 #6; Temple #19)

1. According to the footnote in NAEL on "Affliction (1)," why are arabic numerals in parentheses used for several of Herbert's poems?

2. (a) According to Adams and Logan in their NAEL footnote on this poem, what notable grammatical peculiarity does it have? What thematic function might this grammar help convey? (b) How many metaphors occur in the poem to describe prayer? What sequence or sequences might there be in them?

3. What clear influences of this poem can be seen in Henry Vaughan's "The Night: John 3.2" (in NAEL, and explained in NAEL footnote to the poem) as well as Vaughan's "The Night: John 3.2" (NAEL and pointed out in the NAEL footnote) and his punningly-titled poem "Son-days":
 

            "Son-days" by Henry Vaughan

                        1
Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss,
                                Heaven once a week;
The next world's gladness prepossessed in this;
                                A day to seek
Eternity in time; the steps by which
We climb above all ages; lamps that light
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich,
And full redemption of the whole week's flight.

                        2
The pulleys unto headlong man; time's bower;
                                The narrow way;
Transplanted Paradise; God's walking hour;
                                The cool o'the day;
The creatures' Jubilee' God's parle with dust;
Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh, and flowers;
Angels descending; the returns of trust;
A gleam of glory, after six-days-showers.

                        3
The Church's love-feasts; time's prerogative,
                                And interest
Deducted from the whole; the combs, and hive,
                                And home of rest.
The milky way chalked out with suns; a clue
That guides through erring hours; and in full story
A taste of Heaven on earth; the pledge, and cue
Of a full feast; and the out courts of glory.
 

N & Q on "Jordan (1)" (NAEL7 #7; Temple #26)

1. How is this poem, like "Denial," "Jordan (2)," "The Collar," and "The Forerunners," metapoetic--that is, what ideas about literature and poetry does it express?

2. (a) How does Herbert turn the neoplatonism (cf. Sidney, Spenser, et al.) of English Renaissance romantic poetry against itself in stanzas 1-2, along with satiric thrusts against courtliness and courtiership? (b) In his repeated interrogatives in the poem, what rhetorical device is Herbert himself using? Why should Herbert be skilled in rhetoric, given the biographical data given about him in the first paragraph of Adams' and Logan's introduction in NAEL to Herbert?

3. (a) What pun on lines (a favorite, repeated pun of Herbert, to be found in several other poems, including some anthologized in NAEL) does Herbert make in the poem? (b) How does Herbert make the speaker's utterance "plain" in line 15, as well as fulfill his combative claim to rhyme? (d) What conventional and typological symbolism (see par. 3 of the NAEL intro) is there in the reference to shepherds in stanza 3? (e) With what aquatic entity does Herbert implicitly contrast the "purling streams" of stanza 2? (f) What pun is there on "divines"(9)?

N & Q on "Church Monuments" (NAEL7 #8; Temple #37)
 

N & Q on "The Windows" (NAEL7 #9; Temple #41)
 

N & Q on "Denial" (NAEL7 #10; Temple #55)

1. How is the rhyme scheme of the last stanza of the poem thematically different from the preceding five stanzas?

2. What pun is there on "broken"(3), "bent"(6), "look right"(23), and "heartless"(26)?

3, How does Herbert use a sort of dramatic dialogue in this poem (stanza 3), "Jordan (1)" (stanza 3), "Jordan (2)," "Time," "The Pilgrimage," "The Collar," "The Forerunners," and "Love (3)"?

N & Q on "Virtue" (NAEL7 #11; Temple #63)

1. How does Herbert thematically vary the refrain and rhyme scheme in the last stanza of the poem, in contrast to the preceding three stanzas?

2. (a) How does the third stanza logically summarize the preceding two stanzas in imagery? (b) How does Herbert make the fourth stanza cap the third stanza, and what is suggested thematically through the structural device of capping the previous cap? (c) How might the particular flower chosen be a negative reference to secularism and romantic poetry? How does this poem, for example, contrast with the most famous short love lyric of Edmund Waller (see NNERL), anthologized in NAEL?

N & Q on "Man" (NAEL7 #12; Temple #66)
 

N & Q on "Jordan (2)" (NAEL7 #13; Temple #77)
 

N & Q on "Time" (NAEL7 #14; Temple #95)
 

N & Q on "The Bunch of Grapes" (NAEL7 #15; Temple #100)
 

N & Q on "The Pilgrimage" (NAEL7 #16; Temple #113)
 

1. How does this poem compare and contrast with Henry Vaughan's intriguingly strange poem "Regeneration" (in NAEL)?
 
 

N & Q on "The Holdfast" (NAEL7 #17; Temple #114)
 

N & Q on "The Collar" (NAEL7 #18; Temple #122)

1. How might the title of the poem pun on collar (given the rest of the poem) as: (a) restraint (e.g., like a dog or horse collar); (b) clerical collar; (c) caller; (d) choler? How might this pun lurk in several parts of the poem?

2. (a) How does the poem have the colloquialism and drama of Donne's secular and some of his religious poetry? (b) How does variation in line length lend itself to the colloquialism and drama referred to in part a of this question? (c) How does punctuation help convey the colloquialism and drama of the poem? (d) What puns might there be on "lines" (4), "in suit" (6; cf. 31), "still" (6), and "fit" (21)?

3. (a) How do many of the images and metaphors have an implied, ironic typological symbolism contrasting the secular reference or symbolism? (b) What irony and underlying illogic lie in the speaker's simile of his life being "free as the road"(4)? (c) How does the poem have a reversal structure?
 

N & Q on "The Pulley" (NAEL7 #19; Temple #129)
 

N & Q on "The Flower" (NAEL7  #20; Temple #134)
 

N & Q on "The Forerunners" (NAEL7 #21; Temple #149)
 

N & Q on "Discipline" (NAEL7 #22; Temple #151)
 

N & Q on "Death" (NAEL7 #23; Temple #158)
 

N & Q on "Love (3)" (NAEL7 #24; Temple #162)

1. Why might Herbert have selected this poem to come last in his collection?