Decay
The Familiar Age
The poet recalls the sweet days when God spoke openly with patriarchs and was found at sacred sites and at Sinai.
Those were sweet days—when you lodged with Lot, wrestled with Jacob, sat with Gideon, and took counsel with Abraham—when your power couldn't stand against Moses's fierce complaints and groans. Your words then were, "Let me alone."12 You could have sought and found him at once at some fair oak, or bush, or cave, or well: Is my God this way?3 No, they would reply: He has gone to Sinai, as we heard tell. Listen—you may hear great Aaron's bell.✦4
The Enclosed Heart and the Burning
God's wide love shrinks into the heart, is pressed by sin, and turns at last to a burning judgment.
But now you wall yourself in and shut yourself away in some single corner of a feeble heart—where even there both Sin and Satan, your old enemies, squeeze and hem you in, and use every craft they know to seize your third share and little portion.5 I see the world growing old as the heat of your great love—once spread wide—shuts itself up as if in an urn and keeps retreating, while cold sin forces it back, until it returns and, calling on Justice, all things burn.6
Read the original English
SWeet were the dayes, when thou didst lodge with Lot, Struggle with Jacob, sit with Gideon, Advise with Abraham, when thy power could not Encounter Moses strong complaints and mone: Thy words were then, Let me alone.
One might have sought and found thee presently At some fair oak, or bush, or cave, or well: Is my God this way? No, they would reply: He is to Sinai gone, as we heard tell: List, ye may heare great Aarons bell.
But now thou dost thy self immure and close In some one corner of a feeble heart: Where yet both Sinne and Satan, thy old foes, Do pinch and straiten thee, and use much art To gain thy thirds and little part.
I see the world grows old, when as the heat Of thy great love once spread, as in an urn Doth closet up it self, and still retreat, Cold sinne still forcing it, till it return, And calling Justice, all things burn.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Exod.28.33-Exod.28.35 — And you shall make on its hem pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarn, around its hem, and gold bells in between them all around. Exod.28.34 — a gold bell and a pomegranate, a gold bell and a pomegranate, on the hem of the robe all around Exod.28.35 — And it shall be on Aaron when he serves, and his sound shall be heard when he goes into the holy place before the LORD, and when he comes out, and he shall not die.
Notes
- 1 ↩Early modern mone = moan: lament, complaint, or groan. Rendered as moans to keep the audible force of Moses's pleading.
- 2 ↩Encounter here means meet/withstand in opposition, not merely come across. Rendered as stand against.
- 3 ↩Early modern 'presently' here means immediately/at once, not the later sense 'before long'.
- 4 ↩'List' is the archaic imperative 'listen'; modernized as 'Listen'.
- 5 ↩Early modern legal diction: 'thirds' is a fractional claim on an estate (as in a widow's third). Herbert means God's remaining partial share of the heart, not a modern 'third' in ordinary counting alone.
- 6 ↩Early modern 'closet up it self' means enclose or seal itself away; the urn image is of heat banked and contained rather than openly radiating.
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