the church window, and saw him lying prostrate on the ground before the altar: at which time and place (as he afterwards told Mr. Woodnot) he set some rules to himself for the future manage of his life, and then and there made a vow to labour to keep them.

Nature, in Herbert's view, was no longer to be contemplated directly, but as she was seen through the interpretation of the Scripture. Of the Bible he says:—

O that I knew how all thy lights combine,
And the configuration of their glory,
Seeing not only how each verse doth shine,
But all the constellations of the story.

This verse marks that, and both do make a motion
Unto a third, that ten leaves off doth lie,
Then, as dispersèd herbs do make a potion,
These three make up some Christian's destiny.

Such are thy secrets, which my life makes good,
And comments on thee: for in everything
Thy works do find me out, and parallels bring,
And in another make me understood.
Stars are poor books, and oftentimes do miss :
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss.

In the opening portion of The Temple he seems to deliver a farewell address, full of the secular wisdom gathered from his own experience, to hearers who assemble in the "Church Porch" to look for a moment into the sacred edifice, and then disperse to mingle in the business and amusements of the world. From these he himself turns away, to find, in the lights that stream through the "Church Windows" on to the "Church Pavement," in the "Church Monuments," and even in the "Church Door and Lock," ideas that may lift his soul out of her fleshly prison-house into a heavenly atmosphere. Or he seeks, by means of the sacraments of the Church, to bring his own nature into close and actual communion with God, as he says in one of his most subtly characteristic poems :

Not in rich furniture or fine array,

Nor in a wedge of gold,

Thou, who from me wast sold,

To me dost now Thy self convey.

For so Thou shouldst without me still have been,
Leaving within me sin.

But, by the way of nourishment and strength,
Thou creep'st into my breast,

Making Thy way my rest,

And Thy small quantities my length,
Which spread their forces into every part,
Meeting sin's force and art.

Yet can these not get over to my soul,
Leaping the wall that parts

Our souls and fleshy hearts;

But as th' outworks they may control,
My rebel flesh, and, carrying Thy name,
Affright both sin and shame.

Only Thy grace, which with these elements comes,
Knoweth the ready way,

And hath the private key,

Opening the soul's most subtle rooms,
While those, to spirits refin'd, at door attend
Despatches from their friend.

This habit of self-conscious introspection, and the submission of the intellect to ecclesiastical authority, determine the character of Herbert's poetry, both in respect of its conception of Nature and of its modes of expression. There is no attempt in him to represent the Christian scheme as an imaginative whole in any form of epic action, such as we find in Phineas Fletcher's Purple Island or Giles Fletcher's Christ's Death and Victory. The didactic form is common in his poetry, but here Herbert's treatment of external Nature compares unfavourably with the large and vigorous reasoning power displayed by the author of Nosce Teipsum. One of his longest poems is written on the subject of "Providence," and is intended to illustrate the Divine government of the world. Each stanza contains an isolated conceit; and in his examples of God's wisdom the poet never advances beyond the scholastic knowledge provided for him in Pliny's Natural History. Streams are supposed to move in a circular course through the ocean back to their own springs : antidotes are believed always to grow by poisons.

Exceptional phenomena, incorrectly observed, are cited as proofs of the existence of Providence :

Most things move th' under-jaw; the crocodile not :

Most things sleep lying; th' elephant leans or stands.

And the mere enumeration of commonplace facts is supposed to illustrate design :

Thy cupboard serves the world: the meat is set
Where all may reach; no beast but knows his feed:
Birds teach us hawking; fishes have their net;
The great prey on the less, they on some weed.

Nothing ingendered does prevent his meat;
These have their tables spread ere they appear;
Some creatures have in winter what to eat,
Others to sleep, and envy not their cheer.

Herbert's strength of poetical conception lies in vivid, and often sublime, renderings of the spiritual aspects of human nature, such as are found in the verses curiously called The Pulley :

When God at first made man,

Having a glass of blessings standing by,
"Let us," said He, "pour on him all we can ;
Let the world's riches, which dispersèd be,
Contract into a span."

So strength first made a way,

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

"For if I should," said He,
"Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

"Yet let him keep the rest,

But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness leads him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast."

By his power of intense meditation, he often seems either to penetrate into the farthest regions of abstract thought, or to assure his soul of the inward presence of God. In a poem called The Search he asks:

:

As a poetical vehicle for his religiously metaphysical mood, he found a convenient model in the "wit" of . Donne, using, like Plato, the imagery of the physical, to suggest the invisible movements of the intellectual, Eros. Herbert begins his spiritual voyage where Donne (at least in his early poems) ends. The latter found inspiration

for his metaphysical fancy in the strange paradoxes of sensual love: Herbert pursued conceits equally remote into the paradoxes of religion. Donne opens one of his love-poems on the pains of absence from the beloved object with the following stanza :—

Soul's joy, when thou art gone,

And I alone

Which cannot be,

Because thou dost abide with me,

And I depend on thee:

Herbert, in a poem called A Parody, makes this stanza the starting-point for a meditation on the spiritual intercourse of the soul with God. Concentrating all his imaginative energy on the meditations of his own soul, he sought, by means of the imagery of metaphysical "wit," applied to the doctrines, festivals, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church, to express these meditations in a series of spiritual epigrams. Viewed simply in its poetical aspect, this principle of composition had its strength and weakness. Its strength lay in the intensity and simplicity with which the poet was able to realise and express each mood while it lasted. When, for example, the action of his soul is exalted by partaking of the Holy Communion, he feels himself to be like Adam before his fall :

For sure when Adam did not know

To sin, or sin to smother,

He might to heaven from Paradise go,

As from one room t' another.

But when the mood passes, depression sinks him almost as deep as he had been raised by enthusiasm :

How should I praise Thee, Lord!
Gladly engrave Thy love in steel,

If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!

How should my rhymes

Although there were some forty heavens, or more,

Sometimes I peer above them all,

Sometimes I hardly reach a score,

Sometimes to hell I fall.