[The Temple, Detail of Model]from The Temple (1633), by George Herbert:

 

¶   Good Friday.

                 O My chief good,
How shall I measure out thy bloud?
How shall I count what thee befell,
                 And each grief tell?

                 Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one starre show’d thy first breath,
                 Shall all thy death?

                 Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or can not leaves, but fruit, be signe
                 Of the true vine?

                 Then let each houre
Of my whole life one grief devoure;
That thy distresse through all may runne,
                 And be my sunne.

                 Or rather let
My severall sinnes their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
                 Each sinne may so.

Since bloud is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloudie fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in 
One box doth lie both ink and sinne:

That when sinne spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sinne may say,
No room for me, and flie away.

Sinne being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sinne take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.


Note on Form: Herbert’s poems sometimes take a double-poem organization with two separate stanza forms. Because he played the lute and was familiar with popular songs of his day, he may have adapted this two-part structure. He may even have intended the poems to be sung.
When used simply for dancing [the pavane] was followed by a quicker dance in triple time, generally a galliard, consisting of leaps. Such pairing of dances was a constant practice throughout the [sixteenth] century. - Alec Robinson and Denis Stevens, ed. The Penguin History of Music (Penguin Books: Baltimore, 1967) Vol. 2, p. 179.
On the 2-in-1 poem form see also The H. Communion, Christmas, Easter, Church-floor and The Offering.


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