JESU
Jesu is in my heart, his sacred name
Is deeply carved there; but th' other week
A great affliction broke the little frame,
Ev'n all to pieces; which I went to seek:
And first I found the corner, where was J,
After, where ES, and next, where U was graved.
When I had got these parcels, instantly
I sat me down to spell them, and perceived
That to my broken heart he was I ease you,
And to my whole is JESU.
"Clearly Herbert liked his miniatures and liked them to come out in the form of puzzles, miniature toys for the mind." (Drury, page 345)
Think of a china jug knocked off the shelf and breaking on the kitchen work surface; or a favourite ornament nudged by the cat onto the hearth. A minor domestic drama becomes for Herbert the framed narrative of salvation. The body of Jesus broken and restored again; the Christian heart engraved with the name of Jesus shattered by affliction, and needing pieced together again.
Herbert understood broken hearts, starting with his own. Fumbling around for all the broken pieces, he tries to repair and restore the fragments to something like the original. And in doing so he sees something that would never have occurred to him.
As he works on restoring his broken heart it dawns on him that the sacred name JESU annealed on its surface like a signature of ownership, is also a promise of comfort; "I ease you." There is here a strong echo of Jesus' great invitation, too obvious for it not to cross Herbert's mind: "Come unto me you who are burdened and heavy laden; take my yoke upon you and learn of me, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11.28.
In Greek there is no consonant "J"; so Jesu is really Iesu. So "I ease you" becomes an even more obvious pun, I ES U. That's almost textspeak! Jesus is the one who eases the burdened and heavy laden heart.
Herbert is an early example in English poetry of finding novel ways of extolling the name of Jesus, an approach picked up by later hymn writers, especially Charles Wesley, who knew Herbert's poetry well. His hymn 'O for a heart to praise my God' is one of Wesley's key texts on Christian holiness being perfected through divine love. The hymn ends with the same image of the inscribed heart: 'Write thy new name upon my heart,/ Thy new best name of love.
It's late in Lent; and we are living through deeply disturbing times. For all its playful and perhaps overplayed wit, there is still real art in Herbert's miniature of a domestic drama of brokenness repaired, and the heart comforted in the process. I ease you, I ES U, the name of Jesus, annealed on hearts that know affliction, and will know repair. IESU - There's a text to send, perhaps first to ourselves.
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