April is National Poetry Month.

I’ve posted poems by George Herbert, the seventeenth century Christian poet, on this blog numerous times. If one were to spend the entire month of April just reading through the poems of Mr. Herbert, one a day, it would be devotional enough to last you through the season and to bring you to an awareness of poetry of faith.

Here are some of the posts from Semicolon about George Herbert’s poetry:
Love Bade Me Welcome
The Pulley
Christmas
The Dawning
The Sonne
A Wreath
Easter Wings
Love (II)

Other Links:
More poetry by George Herbert.
The God of Love My Shepherd Is by George Herbert at Rebecca Writes.

Herbert is one of the so-called “metaphysical poets”, along with John Donne and Henry Vaughan. I find all three of these Christian metaphysical poets both bracing and comforting. C.S. Lewis named the poetry of George Herbert as one of the ten works that most influenced his philosophy of life. Richard Baxter, the famous Puritan thinker, said, “Herbert speaks to God like one that really believeth in God, and whose business in the world is most with God. Heart-work and heaven-work make up his books.” If you’re ready for some heart-work and/or heaven-work, I recommend the poetry of George Herbert. Prescription for a weary soul: Read aloud one poem each morning and meditate on it. Repeat each evening before bed.

Here’s one for today:

Vanity (I)

The fleet astronomer can bore
And thread the spheres with his quick-piercing mind:
He views their stations, walks from door to door,
Surveys, as if he had designed
To make a purchase there; he sees their dances,
And knoweth long before
Both their full-eyes aspècts, and secret glances.

The nimble diver with his side
Cuts through the working waves, that he may fetch
His dearly-earnèd pearl, which God did hide
On purpose from the venturous wretch;
That he might save his life, and also hers
Who with excessive pride
Her own destruction and his danger wears.

The subtle chymic can divest
And strip the creature naked, till he find
The callow principles within their nest:
There he imparts to them his mind,
Admitted to their bed-chamber, before
They appear trim and dressed
To ordinary suitors at the door.

What hath not man sought out and found,
But his dear God? who yet his glorious law
Embosoms in us, mellowing the ground
With showers and frosts, with love and awe,
So that we need not say, “Where’s this command?”
Poor man, thou searchest round
To find out death, but missest life at hand.

Herbert once said, “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” It was a good thing that he took his own advice, so to speak, since he produced a multitude of poems, proverbs and other writings, all before he died at the young age of thirty-nine. Had he waited for a more convenient or wiser time of life, we would not have the poems and other works he gave us to meditate upon.