George Herbert
1593–1633 · England
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, the bridal of the earth and sky.”
The lineage through George Herbert
Drew From(3)
who shaped George Herbert
- The metaphysical voice of The Temple is Donne's voice domesticated — speech-rhythm, blunt diction, the seizing conceit
- The connection was personal: Donne was Herbert's godfather and preached at his mother's funeral
- Read Donne first and you'll hear what Herbert inherited — the same wrestling intensity, now aimed at faith instead of love
- The Temple is a seventeenth-century Psalter — Herbert took the Psalms' full range of praise, lament, and penitence as his model for addressing God
- The debt is structural as well as thematic: "The Church" has the same number of poems as the Psalms parceled out across the Anglican liturgical calendar
- His paraphrase of Psalm 23 — "The God of love my shepherd is" — shows the source in the clear; read the Psalms first and Herbert's whole architecture comes into focus
via Colossians
- The poem titled "Coloss. 3.3" is exactly what it says — Herbert citing Paul and turning the verse into form, the line "My life is hid in Him" running diagonally through the text
- Colossians 3:3 gives the poem its whole idea: a life hidden with Christ, hidden so completely that Herbert hides the line itself inside the poem
- Read the source verse and the trick clicks — the page is doing what Paul says
Portraits
The earliest and defining likeness of Herbert, engraved by Robert White for Izaak Walton's 1674 Life; no contemporary portrait survives, so every later image descends from this one. Held by the NPG (D1323).
Robert White, 1674
Herbert in cassock standing in his rectory garden by the river Nadder, prayer-book in hand with a finger holding his place, Salisbury Cathedral's spire rising over meadows behind him; fishing tackle leans against a tree.
William Dyce, 1860
Famous Quotes
“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, / The bridal of the earth and sky.”
“Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, / Guilty of dust and sin.”
“You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat. So I did sit and eat.”
“"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat." / So I did sit and eat.”
About George Herbert
English poet, orator, and Anglican priest whose collection The Temple is among the finest devotional poetry in English. Born into a prominent Welsh family, he abandoned a promising political career for the priesthood. His poems combine intellectual rigor with deep spiritual feeling, often using architectural and musical metaphors for the soul's relationship with God.