This is the text for the free study guide to our free booklet, Sacred Verse and Hymns: George Herbert’s Works of Love and Praise.
George Herbert’s reputation, built up by his friend Nicholas Ferrar, is of an especially pious—even holy—priest and poet. In his introduction to The Temple Ferrar says Herbert’s “faithful discharge (of his priestly duties) was such, as may make him justly a companion to the primitive Saints, and a pattern or more for the age he lived in.”
Four of the poems in this booklet have been included as hymns in the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal—one, Antiphon (1), was even composed with verses and a repeating chorus. Antiphon shouts the greatness of God, which permeates all of creation; this continues in The Elixir where we ask God to enable us to see Him in all things, and in so doing find that everything “turneth all to gold” (a theme powerfully explored further in Love (3)). The only response to this, Herbert writes, is Praise: all day, every day, for all eternity. Finally, in The Call we experience the result of all God’s glorious work for all creation and our response of praise: joy and love, a light and feast that gives us strength and mends us.
In Lent Herbert directly confronts Puritan opposition to observing the liturgical season, proclaiming, “The Scriptures bid us fast; the church says now;” jettisoning the Lenten observance could even mean that, in the end, “we forfeit all our creed.” Instead, we can use the season to travel, at least in part, the “religious way” of Christ’s path of holiness by fasting and praying.
Colossians 3:3 demonstrates Herbert’s creativity by including a word in each line which, combined, reinforce his theme. This creative experimentation can be even more clearly seen in his pattern poems (not included), where the visual shape of the poem itself guides the reader into a deeper devotion.
Image: Cover to the booklet, “Sacred Verse and Hymns,” incorporating an engraving of George Herbert (Source).
