George Herbert
George Herbert
George Herbertwas a Welsh poet, orator and Anglican priest. Herbert's poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as "a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skilful and important British devotional lyricist."...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth3 April 1593
light long burden
Light burdens, long borne, grow heavy.
black pennies
The smith and his penny both are black.
skins dies
The wolf must die in his own skin.
barefoot
Better a barefoot than none.
men proportion limbs
Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one limb to another.
law rooms action
A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room as forThy laws Makes it and th'action fine.
pieces fit
A piece of a Churchyard fits everybody.
mind done may
Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting, where, And when, and how thy business may be done. Slackness breeds worms; but the sure traveller, Though he alights sometimes still goeth on.
play fancy toys
If that thy fame with ev'ry toy be pos'd, 'Tis a thin web, which poysonous fancies make; But the great souldier's honour was compos'd Of thicker stuf, which would endure a shake. Wisdom picks friends; civility plays the rest; A toy shunn'd cleanly passeth with the best.
pain joy deeds
If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains. If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
may holy peril
Avoid,Profaneness; come not here: Nothing but holy, pure, and clear, Or that which groaneth to be so, May at his peril further go.
veins slides kind
He that is drunken * * * Is outlawed by himself; all kind of ill Did with his liquor slide into his veins.
wind carrie feathers
Words and feathers the wind carries away.
prayer praying ends
Resort to sermons, but to prayers most: Praying's the end of preaching.