Employment (I)
A Plea for Purpose
The speaker asks God to give him a useful life before death, acknowledging that all sweetness and praise belong to God, and that grace leads to glory.
If, like a flower that blooms and fades, you would stretch me toward some good before I'm nipped in the bud by the frost's extremity— The sweetness and the praise were yours, but the room to grow, and the place I would fill in your garland, were mine at your great judgment.12 For as you give your grace, the greater our glory will be. The measure of our joys is in this place; the substance is with you.3
The Lament of Uselessness
The speaker laments his barrenness and idleness compared to all creation, and pleads to be given a place in God's harmonious work.
Then don't let me languish and spend a life as barren of your praise as the dust that life is heading toward—only delayed.4 Everything is busy; only I neither bring honey with the bees, nor flowers to make that honey, nor the husbandry to water these flowers. I'm not a link in your great chain, but all my company is a weed.5 Lord, place me in your consort; give one strain to my poor reed.67
Read the original English
IF as a flowre doth spread and die, Thou wouldst extend me to some good, Before I were by frosts extremitie Nipt in the bud;
The sweetnesse and the praise were thine: But the extension and the room, Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine At thy great doom.
For as thou dost impart thy grace, The greater shall our glorie be. The measure of our joyes is in this place, The stuffe with thee.
Let me not languish then, and spend A life as barren to thy praise, As is the dust, to which that life doth tend, But with delaies.
All things are busie; onely I Neither bring hony with the bees, Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie To water these.
I am no link of thy great chain, But all my companie is a weed. Lord place me in thy consort; give one strain To my poore reed.
Notes
- 1 ↩Herbert's 'extension and the room' continues the prior stanza's flower image: not mere length of years, but space given to spread into usefulness. Rendered as 'room to grow' to keep that sense without archaic diction.
- 2 ↩'Great doom' is the Last Judgment, not misfortune; modernized as 'great judgment' to preserve eschatological force.
- 3 ↩Early modern 'stuffe' = material/substance (not colloquial 'stuff'); rendered as 'substance' to keep the contrast with 'measure' without casual tone.
- 4 ↩Source 'But with delaies' hangs on 'tend': life tends to dust, but only with delays—i.e., a barren life is already dust postponed. Rendered as the em-dash clause 'only delayed' to keep that force without archaism.
- 5 ↩Herbert's image of the ordered chain of creation (the great chain of being): the speaker feels unjoined to God's useful work in the world.
- 6 ↩Here a musical ensemble or company of instruments, not a spouse; the petition asks to be set inside God's harmony.
- 7 ↩Both the humble reed-pipe and the plant image continued from 'weed': a thin instrument begging one line of music.
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