e few great poets, than he has occupied since Ben Jonson
declared that he was "the first poet of the world in some things," but
likely to perish "for not being understood." For to much of his poetry we
must apply his own satiric verses on another's crudities:

Infinite work! which doth so far extend
That none can study it to any end.

GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633)

"O day most calm, most bright," sang George Herbert, and we may safely take
that single line as expressive of the whole spirit of his writings.
Professor Palmer, whose scholarly edition of this poet's works is a model
for critics and editors, calls Herbert the first in English poetry who
spoke face to face with God. That may be true; but it is interesting to
note that not a poet of the first half of the seventeenth century, not even
the gayest of the Cavaliers, but has written some noble verse of prayer or
aspiration, which expresses the underlying Puritan spirit of his age.
Herbert is the greatest, the most consistent of them all. In all the others
the Puritan struggles against the Cavalier, or the Cavalier breaks loose
from the restraining Puritan; but in Herbert the struggle is past and peace
has come. That his life was not all calm, that the Puritan in him had
struggled desperately before it subdued the pride and idleness of the
Cavalier, is evident to one who reads between his lines:

I struck the board and cry'd, No more!
I will abroad.
What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
Loose as the wind.

There speaks the Cavalier of the university and the court; and as one reads
to the end of the little poem, which he calls by the suggestive name of
"The Collar," he may know that he is reading condensed biography.

Those who seek for faults, for strained imagery and fantastic verse forms
in Herbert's poetry, will find them in abundance; but it will better repay
the reader to look for the deep thought and fine feeling that are hidden in
these wonderful religious lyrics, even in those that appear most
artificial. The fact that Herbert's reputation was greater, at times, than
Milton's, and that his poems when published after his death had a large
sale and influence, shows certainly that he appealed to the men of his age;
and his poems will probably be read and appreciated, if only by the few,
just so long as men are strong enough to understand the Puritan's spiritual
convictions.

LIFE