Vertue Poem By George Herbert

Vertue

   - By George Herbert

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, 

The bridal of the earth and skie; 

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, 

                            For thou must die. 

Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave 

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye: 

Thy root is ever in its grave, 

                             And thou must die. 

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, 

A box where sweets compacted lie: 

My music shows ye have your closes, 

                                  And all must die. 

Only a sweet and virtuous soul, 

Like season'd timber, never gives; 

But though the whole world turn to coal, 

                                      Then chiefly lives. 

Jordan Poem By George Herbert

Jordan

      - By George Herbert

Who says that fictions onely and false hair 

Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty? 

Is all good structure in a winding stair? 

May no lines pass, except they do their duty 

Not to a true, but painted chair? 

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves 

And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines? 

Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves? 

Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines, 

Catching the sense at two removes? 

Shepherds are honest people; let them sing; 

Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime; 

I envy no man's nightingale or spring; 

Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme, 

Who plainly say, my God, my King. 

Easter - Poem By George Herbert

Easter

      -  By George Herbert

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise

Without delayes,

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

With him mayst rise:

That, as his death calcined thee to dust,

His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part

With all thy art.

The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,

Who bore the same.

His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key

Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song

Pleasant and long:

Or, since all music is but three parts vied 

And multiplied,

Oh let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,

And make up our defects with his sweet art.

I got me flowers to straw thy way;

I got me boughs off many a tree:

But thou wast up by break of day,

And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.

The Sunne arising in the East,

Though he give light, & th’ East perfume;

If they should offer to contest

With thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,

Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?

We count three hundred, but we misse:

There is but one, and that one ever.