Seeing as today is the day on which the Church of England commemorates him on their church calendar, I thought it would be appropriate to share one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets, George Herbert. Herbert was a country priest who was remarkable in the humility of his station in comparison with the depth of his education. He studied at Cambridge and was almost ingratiated into the court of James I, but ultimately that life didn't materialize for him. Pastor George, instead, became a country parson in the remote and rural Wiltshire, where he shepherded the Good Shepherd's flock for relatively few years in number, but grand in quality. Not only did his congregation speak well of him as a pastor, but these were also the years of his life that he produced his greatest poetry.
The poem I've decided to share with you all today is one that encapsulates the spirit of sin, love, and the depth of that love our Savior was smitten by in order to save us from that sin. I hope you delight in and are pastored by Herbert's verse as much as I have been.
The Agony
By George Herbert
Philosophers have measur'd the mountains,
Fathom'd the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk'd with a staffe to heav'n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that found them; Sinne and Love.
Who would know Sinne, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skinne, his garments bloudie be.
Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruell food through ev'ry vein.
Who knows not Love, let him assay,
And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love in that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.
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