Mortification
Swaddled Toward Death
The poet laments how swiftly man decays, showing that even the clothes that swaddle an infant are like winding sheets that send the child toward death.
How quickly man decays! When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets to swaddle infants, whose young breath barely knows the way; those cloths are little winding sheets, which consign them and send them on to death.1
Death in Every Stage
From a boy's bed as a voluntary grave to the youth's music summoning the knell, from the settled home as a waiting coffin to the old man's chair as a bier, every season of life is revealed as a rehearsal for death.
When boys first go to bed, they step into their voluntary graves. Sleep binds them tight; only their breath keeps them from being dead. Night after night, like rolling waves, carries them quickly on—those who are bound for death.2 When youth is frank and free, and calls for music while his veins swell, all day exchanging mirth and breath in company— that music summons him to the knell that will befriend him at the house of death. When a man grows settled and wise, getting a house and home where he can move within the circle of his breath, schooling his eyes—that mute enclosure turns love into the coffin that waits for his death.3 As age grows low and weak, marking his grave and thawing every year until everything melts and drowns his breath when he tries to speak, a chair or litter shows the bier that will carry him to the house of death.✦
Teach Us to Live by Dying
Before a man even realizes it, his whole life has become a dressed hearse while he still breathes; therefore the prayer rises for God to teach us so to die that all these dyings become life in death.
Before he knows it, a man has arranged a solemn ceremony and decorated his own hearse, even while he still has breath left to spare. Yet, Lord, teach us to die in such a way that all these dyings may be life in death.
Read the original English
HOw soon doth man decay! When clothes are taken from a chest of sweets To swaddle infants, whose young breath Scarce knows the way; Those clouts are little winding sheets, Which do consigne and send them unto death.
When boyes go first to bed, They step into their voluntarie graves; Sleep bindes them fast; onely their breath Makes them not dead: Successive nights, like rolling waves, Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.
When youth is frank and free, And calls for musick, while his veins do swell, All day exchanging mirth and breath In companie; That musick summons to the knell, Which shall befriend him at the house of death.
When man grows staid and wise, Getting a house and home, where he may move Within the circle of his breath, Schooling his eyes; That dumbe inclosure maketh love Into the coffin, that attends his death.
When age grows low and weak, Marking his grave, and thawing ev'ry yeare, Till all do melt, and drown his breath When he would speak; A chair or litter shows the biere, Which shall convey him to the house of death.
Man, ere he is aware, Hath put together a solemnitie, And drest his herse, while he has breath As yet to spare. Yet Lord, instruct us so to die, That all these dyings may be life in death.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Job.30.23 — For I know that you will bring me to death, and to the house of meeting for all the living.
Notes
- 1 ↩"chest of sweets" means a chest of sweet-scented things (perfumed linens/herbs), not candy; kept for Herbert's image while modernizing the rest.
- 2 ↩Herbert's 'voluntarie graves' means graves entered by choice or custom (the bed taken willingly each night), not graves of free moral commitment in the theological sense.
- 3 ↩Source 'dumbe inclosure' = the silent/speechless house: 'dumb' as mute, not foolish. 'Maketh love / Into the coffin' is taken as 'turns love into the coffin' (the settled home-love prefigures and becomes the death-image), matching the poem's pattern of life-stage emblems that foreshadow the house of death.
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