Love Bade Me Welcome

A Weary, Dusty Traveler

I have a book titled From the Library of C.S. Lewis – Selections from Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey.  It’s compiled by James Stuart Bell, who wrote his Master’s Thesis on Lewis.  All the folks I’d expected are there – Tolkien, MacDonald, Chesterton – but I found several writers previously unknown to me.  George Herbert was the first.  He shows up early in Bell’s book, on page 15, in the chapter entitled Follow After Agape: God’s Love with this poem. Herbert was a Welsh poet, from the metaphysical devotional school, and an Anglican priest who wrote in the 17th century.  The Luminarium includes a brief biography:

In 1630, in his late thirties he gave up his secular ambitions and took holy orders in the Church of England, spending the rest of his life as a rector of the little parish of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton St Andrew, near Salisbury. He was noted for unfailing care for his parishioners, bringing the sacraments to them when they were ill, and providing food and clothing for those in need.

Henry Vaughan said of him, he was "a most glorious saint and seer". Throughout his life he wrote religious poems characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility, and an ingenious use of imagery or conceits that was favoured by the metaphysical school of poets. Charles Cotton described him as a "soul composed of harmonies". Herbert himself, in a letter to Nicholas Ferrar said of his writings, "they are a picture of spiritual conflicts between God and my soul before I could subject my will to Jesus, my Master”.

Herbert’s poetry is particularly impacting because of these spiritual conflicts, at least they are for this reader.  In truth, “To think of Herbert as the poet of a placid and comfortable easy piety is to misunderstand utterly the man and his poems.” So says T.S. Eliot.  What strikes me is his underlying sincerity - how true his struggles ring -  he is never guilty of that pious insincerity that just doesn’t ring true.  The clarity he brings to what is perhaps universally felt yet not so easily expressed makes the heart leap in recognition with “that’s exactly how I feel”, and “this man understands”, and he does it so beautifully, sometimes wonderfully.   He is careful to point the afflicted comfortingly and assuredly, not to the poetic idol of Venus love, but always and ever faithfully to Christ.

He had a surprising impact on the atheist C.S. Lewis well before his conversion to Christianity: “Here was a man who seemed to me to excel all the authors I had read in conveying the very quality of life as we live it from moment to moment, but the wretched fellow, instead  of doing it all directly, insisted on mediating it through what I still would have called the ‘Christian mythology.’  The upshot of it all could nearly be expressed, ‘Christians are wrong, but all the rest are bores.’”

John Mayer, in Cambridge in the 17th Century, describes him as a very pious man: “So pious his life, that…he might be a pattern of Sanctity to posterity. He never mentioned the name of Jesus Christ, but with this addition, "My Master."  He loved the Word of God, being heard often to protest, "That he would not part with one leaf thereof for the whole world, if it were offered him in exchange." 

For my part, to find a sympathetic poet of such piety and wisdom who so sincerely and eloquently discloses his own spiritual struggles, and so beautifully his faith and hope, has been a great find.  In particular I find myself returning, over and over again, to the poem below.  It called me back, by its haunting spirit, like no other I’ve ever read:

Love Bade Me Welcome

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d anything.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:    
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply.
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat;
So I did sit and eat.

Resources

The Luminarium has a page containing Herbert’s works and a biography cited above.  This poem is listed in his works as Love III.  If you’re interested in a deeper dive, follow the links.  Also, the Christian Classics Ethereal Library has a good resource page available. Finally, Izaak Walton’s Lives of John Donne and George Herbert is available online.  It’s very good.

Lance Pierson’s reading is the one I prefer, although this one is also quite good. I’m trying to obtain a compilation CD of Pierson’s other readings of Herbert. His Picture of a Divine Soul, is available here.  It sounds great, and I can’t wait to hear the background on the poems as well as Pierson’s readings of more Herbert poetry. 

I have to say that Pierson’s reading of this poem has impacted me almost as much as the poem itself.  He was kind enough to answer my email requesting a copy of his work with, “That Herbert poem is my favourite of all, and means a great deal to me.”   Perhaps that’s why he reads it so well.  I feel the Spirit of God in his reading - it’s truly an inspiration, and I can’t tell you how wonderfully impacting it’s been to me.  And so, my heartfelt thanks to you, Lance.