Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BANQUET, by GEORGE HERBERT Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Welcome sweet and sacred cheer Last Line: Strive in this, and love the strife. | ||||||||
WELCOME, sweet and sacred cheer; Welcome, deare; With me, in me, live and dwell: For thy neatnesse passeth sight; Thy delight Passeth tongue to taste or tell. O what sweetnesse from the bowl Fills my soul, Such as is, and makes divine! Is some starre (fled from the sphere) Melted there, As we sugar melt in wine? Or hath sweetnesse in the bread Made a head To subdue the smell of sinne, Flowers, and gummes, and powders giving All their living, Lest the enemie should winne? Doubtlesse neither starre nor flower Hath the power Such a sweetnesse to impart: Onely God, who gives perfumes, Flesh assumes, And with it perfumes my heart. But, as pomanders and wood Still are good, Yet, being bruis'd, are better scented; God, to show how farre his love Could improve, Here, as broken, is presented. When I had forgot my birth, And on earth In delights of earth was drown'd, God took bloud, and needs would be Spilt with me, And so found me on the ground. Having rais'd me to look up, In a cup Sweetly he doth meet my taste. But, I still being low and short, Farre from court, Wine becomes a wing at last. For with it alone I flie To the skie; Where I wipe mine eyes, and see What I seek for, what I sue: Him I view Who hath done so much for me. Let the wonder of this pitie Be my dittie, And take up my lines and life: Hearken under pain of death, Hands and breath, Strive in this, and love the strife. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A TRUE HYMN [HYMNE] by GEORGE HERBERT CHURCH MONUMENTS by GEORGE HERBERT CHURCH-MUSICK [CHURCH MUSIC] by GEORGE HERBERT |
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