The Water-course
The Frailty of Earthly Life
The poet acknowledges the world's frailty and the inevitability of affliction, questioning why anyone who loves Life should expect less.
You who live and linger here below—since the condition of this world is frail, where of all plants afflictions grow the soonest—if troubles overtake you, don't wail: for who that loves Life can expect less?✦ Strife?1
Turning Sorrow to Salvation
The poet urges the reader to redirect the water-course of affliction toward repentance and tears, so that in purity one may adore God, who grants either Salvation or Damnation as He sees fit.
But rather turn the pipe and the water's course to serve your sins, and furnish you with a store of sovereign tears springing from true remorse: so that in purity you may adore him who gives to man, as he sees fit, Salvation.2 /Damnation.3
Read the original English
Thou who dost dwell and linger here below, Since the condition of this world is frail, Where of all plants afflictions soonest grow; If troubles overtake thee, do not wail: For who can look for lesse, that loveth Life? /Strife?
But rather turn the pipe, and waters course To serve thy sinnes, and furnish thee with store Of sov'raigne tears, springing from true remorse: That so in purenesse thou mayst him adore, Who gives to man, as he sees fit, Salvation. /Damnation.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.5.7 — Yet man is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward.
Notes
- 1 ↩Herbert's slash marks the poem's dual ending: the water-course can close on Life or Strife. Kept as an alternate terminal word, not a freestanding gloss.
- 2 ↩Sovereign here carries the early-modern sense of highly efficacious / remedial (as in a sovereign cure), not merely royal rank.
- 3 ↩Herbert's forked last-word alternative to Salvation in the preceding line (paired with Life/Strife in the prior stanza): God gives either, as he sees fit.
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