“Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.”~Paul Valery

WHEN God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure :
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse :
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.

St. Augustine: Nos fecisti ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te.
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

George Herbert:
. . . was born April 3, 1593 in Wales to a wealthy family, patrons of the arts.
. . . entered Cambridge University at the age of 16 and graduated with a master’s degree at the age of 20.
. . . was a member of the Parliament, The House of Commons, for two years.
. . . wrote the lyrics to the hymn Let All the World in Every Corner Sing.
. . . died of tuberculosis on March 1, 1633 at the age of 39.
. . . on his deathbed gave the manuscript to his only book of poetry to his friend, Nicholas Ferrar, and told him to publish the poems if he thought them worthwhile and otherwise to burn them. Thanksfully, Mr. Ferrar did not burn the poems but published the collection, The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations.

Izaak Walton about Herbert: “His chiefest recreation was Musick, in which heavenly Art he was a most excellent Master, and, compos’d many divine Hymns and Anthems, which he set and sung to his Lute or Viol.”

Henry Vaughan (poet): George Herbert was a man “whose holy life and verse gained many pious Converts (of whom I am the least).”

RIchard Baxter: “”Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth a God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books.”

“Poets don’t draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.”~Jean Cocteau

Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.

True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not Honour more.

Who talks about honor anymore? Rather an antiquated term, isn’t it?

“A man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.” ~Walter Lippmann

“The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.” ~George Bernard Shaw

“Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.” ~William Shakespeare

“Honor is like an island, rugged and without shores; once we have left it, we can never return.” ~Nicholas Bolieu

Whom do you know or know of that you consider a man or woman of honor? Ask your children. What is honor? What do they consider to be honorable behavior?

I asked mine.

Z-baby said: “It’s like if you were in a situation where you could die and he could live, or he could die and you could live, he would give his life to save you.”

Betsy-Bee: Respected. You honor someone when he does something good.

Karate Kid: Honor is being respectful and doing what is right. Who do I think is honorable? My dad.

Today, by the way, is Poem In Your Pocket Day. Carry a poem in your pocket and share it with a hungry soul, if you dare.

“Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement.”~Christopher Fry

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered to her eye,
The gods that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

RIchard Lovelace was a so-called “Cavalier Poet”, loyal to King Charles I during the English CIvil war of the 17th century. Other cavalier poets included Thomas Carew, Robert Herrick, and Sir John Suckling. Lovelace wrote this poem in 1642 while he was in Gatehouse Prison for petitioning to have the Clergy Act 1640 annulled which annulment would have returned the Anglican bishops to the House of Lords from which they had been excluded for their loyalty to King Charles. Althea may or may not have been a real person, but imagination provided Lovelace with Althea to caress, wine to drink, voice to praise the king, and freedom to live in peace and solitude.

This song is Lovelace’s words put to folk music by a group called Fairport Convention, music by Dave Swarbrick. The video clips are from the movie Fly Away Home.

Study guide to this poem.

“I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.”~John Donne

Donne wrote this poem to his wife, Anne in 1611 as he was leaving the country on a diplomatic mission to France. The two had been married by this time for about ten years. Anne was related, by marriage, to Donne’s employer, and in 1601 when Anne was seventeen years old, she and John married, even though he knew the marriage would not be acceptable to his employer or to Anne’s father. Indeed, after the two married, Donne was fired from his job and spent a brief time in jail. John Donne and his beloved wife Anne had twelve children, five of whom died young, and then Anne herself died in 1617, leaving John with the surviving children to raise and support. John Donne never remarried.

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“The breath goes now,” and some say, “No,”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Read more about the poem and its background here.