Logos Virtual Library: George Herbert: The Temple: The Church: Mans Medley

George Herbert

George Herbert (1593-1633)

The Temple

Mans Medley

Heark, how the birds do sing,

And woods do ring.
All creatures have their joy: and man hath his.

Yet if we rightly measure,

Mans joy and pleasure
Rather hereafter, then in present, is.

To this life things of sense

Make their pretence:
In th’ other Angels have a right by birth:

Man ties them both alone,

And makes them one,
With th’ one hand touching heav’n, with th’ other earth.

In soul he mounts and flies,

In flesh he dies.
He wears a stuffe whose thread is course and round,

But trimm’d with curious lace,

And should take place
After the trimming, not the stuffe and ground.

Not, that he may not here

Taste of the cheer,
But as birds drink, and straight lift up their head,

So must he sip and think

Of better drink
He may attain to, after he is dead.

But as his joyes are double;

So is his trouble.
He hath two winters, other things but one:

Both frosts and thoughts do nip,

And bite his lip;
And he of all things fears two deaths alone.

Yet ev’n the greatest griefs

May be reliefs,
Could he but take them right, and in their wayes.

Happie is he, whose heart

Hath found the art
To turn his double pains to double praise.