Good Friday
The Impossible Reckoning
The poet asks how any human measure—enemies, stars, or falling leaves—can possibly number the griefs of Christ's passion.
O my chief good, how shall I measure out your blood? How shall I count what happened to you, and tell of each grief? Shall I count your woes by the number of your foes? Or, since one star marked your first breath, shall all the stars mark your death?1 Or should every leaf that falls in autumn count as a grief? Or can only fruit, not leaves, be a sign of the true vine?2
Personal Sorrow
He then offers two ways to make the Passion personal: let every hour consume one grief, or let every sin meet its own sorrow.
Then let each hour of my whole life devour one grief, so that your distress may run through it all and be my sun. Or rather, let each of my individual sins receive its own sorrow, so that just as every beast knows its cure, each sin may know its own.3
Blood-Written Heart
He asks Christ to write his sorrows in the blood of his own heart, so that the sight of the Passion drives out sin and grace keeps possession.
Since blood is the fittest, Lord, to write your sorrows in, and that bloody sight: my heart has store; write there, where both ink and sin lie in one box: So when Sin spots so many foes—your whips, your nails, your wounds, your woes—all gathered there, Sin might say, “There’s no room for me,” and fly away. Sin being gone, oh fill the place, and keep possession with your grace; lest sin take courage and return, and blot or burn all the writings.
Read the original English
O My chief good, How shall I measure out thy bloud? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell?
Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one starre show'd thy first breath, Shall all thy death?
Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumne, score a grief? Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be signe Of the true vine?
Then let each houre Of my whole life one grief devoure; That thy distresse through all may runne, And be my sunne.
Or rather let My sev'rall sinnes their sorrows get; That as each beast his cure doth know, Each sinne may so.
Since bloud is fittest, Lord, to write Thy sorrows in, and bloudie sight; My heart hath store; write there, where in One box doth lie both ink and sinne:
That when Sinne spies so many foes, Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes, All come to lodge there, Sinne may say, No room for me, and flie away.
Sinne being gone, oh fill the place, And keep possession with thy grace; Lest Sinne take courage and return, And all the writings blot or burn.
Notes
- 1 ↩Elliptical second clause: source implies the stars that would number/signify Christ's death, answering the single Bethlehem star that 'showed' his birth.
- 2 ↩Early modern 'cannot X, but Y' = 'only Y, not X'; rendered as exclusive contrast rather than mere inability.
- 3 ↩Herbert’s image treats fitting sorrow as the proper ‘cure’ of each sin, parallel to the folk notion that each beast knows its remedy; the modern line keeps that medicinal parallel rather than softening it to vague regret.
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