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March 9, 2003
Today's Offering of Poetry
From George Herbert, whom I do not like so well as some of his contemporaries, but for whom affection increases with each successive reading.
Love (I)
George HerbertImmortal Love, author of this great frame,
Sprung from that beauty which can never fade,
How hath man parcel'd out Thy glorious name,
And thrown it on that dust which Thou hast made,
While mortal love doth all the title gain!
Which siding with Invention, they together
Bear all the sway, possessing heart and brain,
(Thy workmanship) and give Thee share in neither.
Wit fancies beauty, beauty raiseth wit;
The world is theirs, they two play out the game,
Thou standing by: and though Thy glorious name
Wrought our deliverance from th' infernal pit,
Who sings Thy praise? Only a scarf or glove
Doth warm our hands, and make them write of love.
Talk about the cold, closed, tight nature of the human heart--all the glory of creation around us and "Only a scarf or glove/Doth warms our hands, and make them write of love." Not love itself, which we reject by a myriad of motions and notions, but cloth which we manufacture. Love lights no fire in us and we trudge along obediently seeking to serve, but not really seeking to love.
Posted by Steven Riddle at March 9, 2003 8:20 AM