George Herbert (1593 - 1633)

"JORDAN

"Who says that fictions only and false hair

Become a verse? Is there no truth in beauty?

Is all good structure in a winding stair?

May no lines pass, except they do their duty

Not to a true, but a painted chair?


"Is it no verse, except enchanted groves

And sudden arbors shadow coarse-spun lines?

Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?

Must all be veiled 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 nor spring;

Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,

Who plainly say, My God, My King."


-- by George Herbert, 1593 - 1633

http://www.absolutelypoetry.com/author/george-herbert/jordan.html

http://www.archive.org/stream/herbertsworks02waltuoft/herbertsworks02waltuoft_djvu.txt


"MORTIFICATION


"How soon doth man decay!
When clothes are taken from a chest of sheets
To swaddle infants, whose young breath
Scarce knows the way ;
Those clouts are little winding sheets, [as in breech clouts]
Which do consign and send them unto death.


"When boyes go first to bed,
They step into their solitary graves;
Sleep binds them fast ; only their breath
Makes them not dead.
Successive nights, like rolling waves,
Convey them quickly, who are bound for death.


"When youth is frank and free,
And calls for musick, while his veins do swell,
All day exchanging mirth and breath
In company ;
That music ruminons to the knell, [ruminates? summons?]
Which shall befriend him at the houle of death.


"When man grows staid and wise,
Getting a houle and home, where he may move [house?]
Within the circle of his breath,
Schooling his eyes;
That dumb inclosure maketh love
Unto the coffin, that attends his death.


"When age grows low and weak,
Marking his grave, and thawing every year,
Till all do melt, and drown his breath
When he would speak ;
A chair or litter shows the biere [foreshadows or prefigures?]
Which shall convey him to the houle of death.


"Man, ere he is aware,
Hath put together a solemnity,
And drest his hearse, while he has breath
As yet to spare.
Yea, Lord, instruct us so to die
That all these dyings may be life in death."

-- by George Herbert, 1593 - 1633

also cf.: http://user.itl.net/~geraint/miscpoem.html