This book arrived today. I've looked for a reasonably priced and clean copy for a long time. I collect literary criticism on George Herbert, and I have several editions of his poems, from mid 19th Century to the more substantial modern editions. They take up over three feet of shelf space and I don't grudge a centimetre of it. Metaphysical poetry is a niche interest, and academic books for limited interest groups can require an equity raid on your house to afford them. So I was pleased to get this volume, shipped from Kentucky, for under £7. It's an ex-library copy, and inside it says it's a 14 day loan book from Lexington Public Library. It's tight, clean, forty something years old, and as often, I wonder who read it beforre me?
Herbert was never everyone's taste, although there was a surge of admiration and new editions in the Victorian period. Herbert's devotional lyricism, albeit often expressed in clever (too clever?) linguistic conceits, appealed to a deeply religious culture impressed by the immediacy, intimacy and restrained passion of Herbert's poems.
In celebration of this book, whose title comes from Praise II, one of Herbert's better known poems, here are the first three verses. The direct address to God is caught up in a rhythm of I and Thee and Thou and me. The combinations of intimacy and reverence, of familiarity and formality, and of emotional warmth and devotional frankness, are features of Herbert's best poetry. These lines are a lovely prayer for start of day, or indeed for end of day. There is an entire lexicon of meaning in those two words, 'utmost art', the dedication of skill, energy, gift, artifice and imagination, to the praise of God
KIng of Glorie, King of Peace,
I will love thee:
And that love may never cease,
I will move thee.
Thou hast granted my request,
Thou hast heard me:
Thou didst note my working breast,
Thou hast spar’d me.
Wherefore with my utmost art
I will sing thee,
And the cream of all my heart
I will bring thee.
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