When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beautie flow'd, then wisdome, honour, pleasure;
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
Rest in the bottome lay.
For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead 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 restlesnesse;
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
May tosse him to my breast.
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Great...
From guest Ramchandra (contact)
This is my best poem..i had learned this poem at the time of my H.S.C -
From guest Sarah Khayal (contact)
George Herbert as a major religious poet who spent the rest of his life in working as a priest in the church, he reflects his religious doctrines via his poetry as we've seen last time when we read his celebrated poem "The Collar". When I read the first line of Herbert's The Pulley, I believed that we are again in front of another religious poem for him which may be deal with god's creation of man and man's relation with god , but at the same i wondered how could the title of the poem, which is "The Pulley" be related to the poem. When I read this title, i was in need to look for its meaning in the dictionary becuase it's very clear, as the pulley simply means "the wheel", which is a tool for holding or raising up heavy things. I feel that the title is a kind of conceit , but i really don't know what it indicates. While reading the peom, i noticed that Herbert is using words, such as "When, so , For, Yet, If , May...etc" it could be an indication for his arguments . Another thing which aslo attracted me is the use of the word "Rest" as he uses it three times, one time in the second stanza, another time in the third stanza and also in the last stanza, but my question is "does the word REST in every stanza hold the same meaning, or its meaning defers from one stanza to another.... Something I want to add, it could be far away from the poem but i don't know why it came into my mind when I read the word "restlessness" in thelast stanza, i see that the idea of restlessness is associated with the lack of sleep, which is an idea that was involved in the minds of many Renaissance witers. Many of Shakespear's play include refernces to sleep or the lack of it as a punishment for sins committed. Like what happened in Macbeth and Othelo who were tormented by the lack of sleep. In conclusion, Unlike Donne, Herbert depends less heavily on conceits and extrem metaphors and his ideas seem also distinguished. Although the poet is using some kind of simple language and easy words, the subject matter of the poem is not very clear to me, it may because there is a religioud background for it..... Thank you, Sarah Khayal -
don't touch it!
The perfect metaphysical.
Iain aka Morgan
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