Grace
The Cry for Grace
The speaker laments spiritual barrenness and darkness, pleading for grace to fall from above.
My stock lies dead, and my dull husbandry brings no increase: O let your graces drop without ceasing from above! If the sun were still to hide its face, your house would be nothing but a dungeon, your works captives of the night: O let grace drop from above!✦
The Metaphors of Grace
Using dew, death, and sin as metaphors, the speaker contrasts natural and spiritual need for grace.
The dew falls every morning; and will the dew outstrip your dove? The dew, which grass cannot call for—drop from above.1 Death is still working like a mole, digging my grave with every step I take. Let grace work too, and drop from above onto my soul.2 Sin keeps hammering my heart into a hardness empty of love. Let softening grace drop from above to thwart sin's craft.34
The Final Plea
The speaker urgently calls for grace to come, acknowledging God's knowledge of the way, and offers an alternative if grace will not come.
Oh, come! for you know the way. Or if you won't come to me, take me where I don't have to say, 'Drop from above.'✦5
Read the original English
MY stock lies dead, and no increase Doth my dull husbandrie improve: O let thy graces without cease Drop from above!
If still the sunne should hide his face, Thy house would but a dungeon prove, Thy works nights captives: O let grace Drop from above!
The dew doth ev'ry morning fall; And shall the dew out-strip thy dove? The dew, for which grasse cannot call, Drop from above.
Death is still working like a mole, And digs my grave at each remove: Let grace work too, and on my soul Drop from above.
Sinne is still hammering my heart Unto a hardnesse, void of love: Let suppling grace, to crosse his art, Drop from above.
O come! for thou dost know the way. Or if to me thou wilt not move, Remove me, where I need not say, Drop from above.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.13.1;Deut.31.17-Deut.31.18 — To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. Deut.31.17 — Then my anger will burn against them on that day, and I will abandon them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured; and many calamities and distresses will overtake them, and they will say on that day, 'Is it not because my God is not among me that these calamities have found me?' Deut.31.18 — And I will surely hide my face in that day, because of all the evil they have done, for they have turned to other gods.
- ↩Jas.1.17 — Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Notes
- 1 ↩Drop from above continues the poem’s prayer-refrain; it is petition, not mere description of dew falling.
- 2 ↩Early modern 'remove' means a move, stage, or change of place (as on a journey). Rendered as 'with every step I take' to keep the mole-digging image and the sense that each advance in life deepens the grave.
- 3 ↩Herbert's 'suppling' means making soft and pliant; rendered as 'softening' to keep the physical counter-image to hardness without archaism.
- 4 ↩'Cross' here means oppose or defeat; 'his art' is Sin's hardening craft. Rendered 'thwart his craft' for plain force while preserving the contest with grace.
- 5 ↩Herbert's plea is double: either grace moves toward him, or he is removed to a place (heaven/presence) where the refrain 'Drop from above' is no longer needed. 'Remove me' is rendered 'take me' as relocation, not mere subtraction.
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