Classic and Contemporary Poetry
CONFESSION, by GEORGE HERBERT Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: O what a cunning guest Last Line: They shall be thick and cloudie to my breast. | ||||||||
O WHAT a cunning guest Is this same grief! within my heart I made Closets, and in them many a chest; And, like a master in my trade, In those chests, boxes; in each box, a till: Yet grief knows all, and enters when he will. No scrue, no piercer can Into a piece of timber worke and winde, As Gods afflictions into man, When he a torture hath design'd. They are too subtill for the subt'llest hearts; And fall, like rheumes, upon the tendrest parts. We are the earth; and they, Like moles within us, heave, and cast about: And till they foot and clutch their prey, They never cool, much lesse give out. No smith can make such locks, but they have keyes; Closets are halls to them; and hearts, high-wayes. Onely an open breast Doth shut them out, so that they cannot enter; Or, if they enter, cannot rest, But quickly seek some new adventure. Smooth open hearts no fastning have; but fiction Doth give a hold and handle to affliction. Wherefore my faults and sinnes, Lord, I acknowledge; take thy plagues away: For, since confession pardon winnes, I challenge here the brightest day, The clearest diamond: let them do their best, They shall be thick and cloudie to my breast. | 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 |
|