When we have discovered the truth that whatsoever is not of faith is sin, the way to meet it is not to forsake the human law, but so to obey it as to thank God for it. To leave the world and go into the desert is not thus to give thanks: it may have been the only way for this or that man, in his blameless blindness, to take. The divine mind of George Herbert, however, was in the main bent upon discovering God everywhere.
The poem I give next, powerfully sets forth the struggle between liking and duty of which I have spoken. It is at the same time an instance of wonderful art in construction, all the force of the germinal thought kept in reserve, to burst forth at the last. He calls it--meaning by the word, _God's Restraint_--
I struck the board, and cried "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, as large as store. Shall I be still in suit? Have I no harvest but a thorn To let me blood, and not restore What I have lost with cordial fruit? Sure there was wine Before my sighs did dry it! There was corn Before my tears did drown it! Is the year only lost to me? Have I no bays to crown it? No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted? All wasted? Not so, my heart; but there is fruit, And thou hast hands. Recover all thy sigh-blown age On double pleasures. Leave thy cold dispute Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage, Thy rope of sands, Which petty thoughts have made--and made to thee Good cable, to enforce and draw, And be thy law, While thou didst wink and wouldst not see. Away! Take heed-- I will abroad. Call in thy death's-head there. Tie up thy fears. He that forbears To suit and serve his need, Deserves his load." But as I raved, and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling "_Child!_" And I replied, "_My Lord!_"
Coming now to speak of his art, let me say something first about his use of homeliest imagery for highest thought. This, I think, is in itself enough to class him with the highest _kind_ of poets. If my reader will refer to _The Elixir_, he will see an instance in the third stanza, "You may look at the glass, or at the sky:" "You may regard your action only, or that action as the will of God." Again, let him listen to the pathos and simplicity of this one stanza, from a poem he calls _The Flower_. He has been in trouble; his times have been evil; he has felt a spiritual old age creeping upon him; but he is once more awake.