George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Nature | Christian Poems | Metaphysical Poetry
Christian Art | George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Nature
Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travell, or denie
That thou hast ought to do with me.
O tame my heart;
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.
If thou shalt let this venome lurk,
And in suggestions fume and work,
My soul will turn to bubbles straight,
And thence by kinde
Vanish into a winde,
Making thy workmanship deceit.
O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy rev’rend law and fear;
Or make a new one, since the old
Is saplesse grown,
And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, then thee to hold.
George Herbert | The Temple | The Church | Nature
The poem reflects an inner struggle between rebellion and submission to divine authority, expressing the poet’s desire to resist God but also recognition of the futility of doing so. The first stanza presents the poet’s rebellious spirit, where he admits to wanting to die, fight, or deny God’s influence over him. This opposition to God’s control is portrayed as a natural inclination of the poet’s heart, which he acknowledges as a stronghold that resists divine authority. However, the poet also requests that God tame his heart, recognizing that the ultimate skill or ‘highest art’ of God is to bring even the strongest opposition into submission. This sets the poem’s central theme of rebellion versus surrender.
The second stanza delves deeper into potential consequences if God allows the rebellious spirit to remain unchecked. The poet likens this rebellion to venom that festers in his soul, suggesting that if left to ‘lurk’ and ‘fume’, it will quickly dissolve his soul into meaningless ‘bubbles’ or empty thoughts. The phrase ‘thence by kind vanish into a wind’ illustrates fleeting nature of the soul when not anchored in God. The idea is that without divine intervention, the poet’s soul will disappear like vapor, making God’s creation — God’s ‘workmanship’ — seem failure. This highlights the poet’s dependence on God for the preservation of his soul and identity.
The final stanza introduces a plea for transformation. The poet shifts from a description of rebellion to a prayerful request for God to smooth his ‘rugged heart’. The metaphor of engraving God’s ‘reverend law and fear’ into the heart suggests a deep desire for lasting, transformative relationship with God’s will. The image of engraving implies a permanent and unchangeable impact, a contrast to the earlier image of the soul vanishing like bubbles. If the rebellious heart cannot be smoothed, the poet asks for a completely new one, as the old heart is ‘sapless’, implying it has lost its life and vitality. The ‘old heart’ is compared to a stone, which serves as a final resting place for the poet’s dust after death. This stone, without divine intervention, is inadequate to sustain relationship with God. It is only fit to hide the poet’s remains rather than be the seat of spiritual life.
Throughout the poem, imagery of rebellion and of the soul’s decay without divine intervention emphasizes the poet’s dependence on God’s grace. The idea that God’s law and fear must be inscribed on the heart suggests that true obedience comes from an internal transformation, rather than external compulsion. This contrast between rebellious heart and heart engraved with God’s law illustrates such tension between human frailty and THE divine power to reform and renew.
The poem explores themes of rebellion, transformation, and the human heart’s resistance to God’s will. The poet recognizes futility of fighting against divine authority and pleads for God to reshape his heart, acknowledging that without this divine intervention, the poet’s soul is destined for futility.
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Christian Art | Boy At Prayer With Jesus Office Of Readings | Eastertide Week 3, Friday | A Reading From The Sermons Of Saint Ephraem | Jesus Christ’s Cross | Salvation Of The Human Race ‘Christ’s cross, the salvation of the human race.’ Death Swallowed By Life | Triumph Through Paradox Saint Ephraem’s homily on the Cross is shaped by the paradox at the heart of the Paschal mystery: that death is undone by death. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, takes on flesh so that he might enter into death, not as a victim, but as a conqueror. Ephraem does not reason this out philosophically, nor does he dwell on emotional pathos. Instead, he draws out the inner structure of salvation as something enacted by God in the flesh, and received by us in faith. Christ’s Body As The Instrument Of Victory Ephraem insists that death could only be defeated from within. Jesus Christ assumes a mortal body so that he may be subject to death. This is not a concession but a strategy. The Incarnation is already an act of warfare—a descent, a confrontation. Death can only touch the human. So the divine Word becomes human in order that death might take him. But in taking him, death overreaches. It consumes the flesh but encounters the divine life within it. The imagery is rich, but the argument is precise: the very body that death uses to kill Christ becomes the weapon Christ uses to destroy death. ‘Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed,’ Ephraem says, ‘but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death.’ This is Chalcedonian Christology preached with Paschal faith. It holds together the full humanity and full divinity of Christ in the single action of salvation. The Descent And The Harrowing Of Hell Ephraem’s reflection is also an early and vivid witness to the doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell. Jesus Christ enters death not to remain there, but to liberate those held within it. He breaks into the ‘fortress’ of death and ‘scatters its treasure’. He descends to summon the dead. This is not mere metaphor: for Ephraem, Christ’s real descent to the dead is a necessary part of our redemption. The Resurrection begins not simply with Christ leaving the tomb, but with his descent into the place of death to lead others out with him. Eve And Mary | The Reversal Of History A patristic hallmark appears here as well: the Eve–Mary typology. Eve, the ‘mother of the living’, becomes through her disobedience the cause of death; Mary, in whose womb Christ takes flesh, becomes the bearer of Life itself. This is not a peripheral contrast. It is essential to Ephraem’s sense of how God saves: not by abandoning history, but by entering it and reversing its wounds. The damage is undone from within. The vine is replanted. The same human race that fell is the one restored. The Cross As The Tree Of Life Ephraem develops the image of the Cross as the Tree of Life. Just as the Fall came through a tree, so does redemption. But unlike the tree in Eden, which brought death when touched unlawfully, the Cross is the tree that brings life when embraced in faith. Here we are reminded that for Ephraem and the Fathers, salvation is not a new system imposed from without. It is the healing of creation from within its own history, its own wounds. God does not cast away what is broken; he enters it, redeems it, and makes it the means of grace. Resurrection And Eucharistic Seed Toward the end of the homily, Ephraem turns to the image of sowing: Christ’s body, buried in the earth, rises as the first fruits of a new humanity. He compares the dead body of Christ to a grain sown in the ground, echoing John 12:24. What is buried in apparent defeat becomes the beginning of a harvest. The Resurrection is not simply Christ’s triumph; it is the beginning of the general resurrection, and of the Church itself. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. The Church is the field in which this seed now grows. Response And Imitation The homily ends not with an argument, but with a summons. If Christ has offered his cross for the enrichment of all, then the proper response is to offer ourselves—’the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love’. Doctrine leads to worship. Soteriology leads to doxology. In the liturgical life of the Church, we do not merely remember these mysteries; we enter them. We stand beneath the Cross and follow the One who walked into death to bring us out. A Reading From The Sermons Of Saint Ephraem | Jesus Christ’s Cross | Salvation Of The Human Race Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it. Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man. Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the […]
