Paradise
Paradise
I bless you, Lord, because I grow among your trees, which in a row owe you both fruit and order.1 What open force or hidden charm can blast my fruit or bring me harm while the enclosure is your arm?2 Keep me enclosed, for fear I might bolt.3 Be sharp and strict with me rather than let me go without your hand and skill.4 When you spare the harsher judgments, and with your knife only prune and pare, even fruitful trees grow more fruitful. This sharpness reveals the sweetest friend; these cuttings heal rather than tear, and such beginnings reach their end.✦5
Read the original English
I Bless thee, Lord, because I GROW Among thy trees, which in a ROW To thee both fruit and order OW.
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, Then let me want thy hand & art.
When thou dost greater judgments spare, And with thy knife but prune and pare, Ev'n fruitfull trees more fruitful are.
Such sharpnes shows the sweetest frend: Such cuttings rather heal then rend: And such beginnings touch their end.
Scripture echoes
- ↩John.15.1-John.15.2 — I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. John.15.2 — Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source end-word play GROW / ROW / OW depends on truncating the previous rhyme; OW is the early spelling of 'owe'. Modern rendering keeps the sense (owe fruit and order to God) and the rowed orchard image; the letter-cutting device is only partly recoverable once spelling is modernized.
- 2 ↩Herbert's CHARM/HARM/ARM pattern is a visual truncation device in the original; the sense is open violence or secret spell vs. God's protecting arm as the garden enclosure.
- 3 ↩Early modern 'start' here means to startle, bolt, or break free, not begin; rendered as 'bolt' to preserve the garden-enclosure sense of sudden flight.
- 4 ↩Source 'Then' is the early-modern spelling of comparative 'than'; 'want' means lack; 'art' means skill/craft, kept as the gardener's skilled care.
- 5 ↩Early modern 'then' is comparative 'than' (not temporal 'then'); 'touch their end' means arrive at / fulfill their proper end.
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