"I know the ways of honor, what maintains
The quick returns of courtesy and wit:
In vies of favor whether party gains,
When glory swells the heart and mouldeth it
To all expressions both of hand and eye,
Which on the world a true-love knot may tie,
And bear the bundle, wheresoe'er it goes:
How many drams of spirits there must be
To sell my life unto my friends or foes:
Yet I love thee.
"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 unbridled store:
My stuff is flesh, not grass; my senses live,
And grumble oft, that they have more in me
Than he that curbs them, being but one to five:
Yet I love thee.
"I know all these, and have them in my hand;
Therefore not sealed, but with open eyes
I fly to thee, and fully understand
Both the main sale, and the commodities;
And at what rate and price I have thy love;
With all the circumstances that may move:
Yet through the labyrinths, not my grovelling wit,
But thy silk-twist let down from heav'n to me,
Did both conduct and teach me, how, by it,
To climb to thee."
A splendid retrospect this of a short life: and with what accurate knowledge of art, science, policy, literature, of powers of body and mind. Herbert's poems are full of this sterling sense and philosophical reflection—the mintage of a master mind.
Addison's version of the twenty-third Psalm has entered into every household and penetrated every heart by its sweetness and pathos. There is equal gentleness and sincerity in Herbert's:
"The God of love my shepherd is,
And he that doth me feed.
While he is mine, and I am his,
What can I want or need?
"He leads me to the tender grass,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass:
In both I have the best.
"Or if I stray, he doth convert,
And bring my mind in frame
And all this not for my desert,
But for his holy name.
"Yea, in death's shady, black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For thou art with me, and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.
"Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine,
E'en in my en'mies' sight;
My head with oil, my cup with wine,
Runs over day and night.