Herbert, George (1593-1633), was a leading English poet of the 1600’s. His major volume of poems, The Temple (1633), was published shortly after his death and achieved wide popularity and influence. In this collection of 164 short lyric poems, Herbert artfully and lovingly described what he called “the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul.”
Herbert wrote mainly on religious subjects. In the poem “Jordan (II),” he declared, “There is in [God’s] love a sweetness ready penn’d” that the poet needs only to “copy out.” Herbert used great metrical variety, employing more than 140 different stanza patterns. He used intimate, sometimes homely imagery to express himself in poetry of great depth and emotional precision. Herbert’s poems include “The Altar,” “The Collar,” “The Pulley,” and three separate poems called “Love.” In addition, he wrote the well-known Anglican hymn “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing.”
Herbert was born into a noble Welsh family on April 3, 1593. He served in Parliament in 1624 and 1625. In 1626, he was ordained a deacon in the Church of England. He then worked his way through the spiritual conflicts described in The Temple and became rector at Bemerton, near Salisbury, in 1630. That same year, he was ordained to the priesthood. He died on March 1, 1633.
