Virtue - By George Herbert

Virtue

By George Herbert

 

 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky;

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave

Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,

A box where sweets compacted lie;

My music shows ye have your closes,

And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turn to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

  Introduction:

            George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was a Welsh-born poet, orator and Anglican priest. Herbert's poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists." (Wikipedia)

    

            "Virtue" is one of the poems in a collection of verse called The Temple (1633), which George Herbert wrote during the last three years of his life. The poet appreciates the beauty of creation not only for his own sake but also because he sees it as a mirror of the goodness of the creator. He presents a vision of an eternal world.

    Analysis

             George Herbert in this poem tried to project the basic difference between mortal and immortal through concrete example in every stanza, as it is said,

"Men without virtue are like lifeless flower"

    This is what makes the poet write on such a topics.

             In the first stanza, poet talks about a beautiful day wherein everything between earth and sky seems to be picture perfect, but it has to come an end.

The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,

For thou must die.

             No matter what the circumstances are, as anything that is natural has to come to an end one day. There is end of everything whether it is beautiful or not, and poet has presented the beauty of the day and then talked about the night and dew.

             In the second stanza, the comparison is with rose, which is very beautiful when in full bloom, but its end is permanent. This example remains that the beauty is always to remember, but it is not concrete.

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

             We can feel it; we can love it, but that all is in our sense. Rose is the perfect example for that, and at the end, the death of the rose only remains permanent.

             In the third stanza, there is a description of spring season, which seems to be having a never ending affair with nature, but in winter everything apart and only the memory of spring season would be sketch on your mind forever.

             Above three stanzas have a common ending with the concept of death but one should not forget that death is a death of "body" and not "feelings", and this point is given importance in the last stanza. The poet here talks about the immortality of virtuous soul, and in life what matters is what you feel and not what you see.

            In the poem there is a use of Simile by the word 'and' and 'like'. There is also personification by using,

 

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky;

           The poet has also used alliteration, imagery, and metaphors. The poet has regular rhyming scheme. The first line rhymes with third and second line rhymes with fourth. The rhyming scheme is a, b, a, b.