Virtue by George Herbert

 Virtue by George Herbert 

About George Herbert:

George Herbert was born into a wealthy family in Wales. His father died when he was young, so his mother raised him and his siblings. She was a devout woman and was determined to raise them in the Church of England. Herbert's mother was so respected by the famous poet John Donne that he dedicated poems to her. Herbert received the best possible education, attending Trinity College, Cambridge in 1609. He was then hired as a high-profile representative of Cambridge. During this time he caught the attention of King James I and worked in the Parliament of England for a short period. After King James died, Herbert gave up on this public career. He took holy orders and was ordained as an Anglican priest, becoming the rector of a small church near Salisbury, Bemerton. He spent the last years of his life writing poetry and serving this small church community before dying of consumption at the age of 39.

Herbert is known as a poet of devotional verse. His poems focus on religious experience. Some of his most well-known poems are "The Altar" and "Easter Wings"—both pattern poems that are laid out on the page to resemble what they describe. He is best known for the short lyric poems from his single book of poetry The Temple. Because of the strange and unexpected images he used, he is sometimes known as a "metaphysical poet" alongside Donne and Andrew Marvell. In addition to writing in English, Herbert also wrote poems in Latin.

While Herbert's poems received praise during his lifetime and in subsequent centuries, he reached new critical acclaim in the 20th century, in part because of T. S. Eliot's praise of him and others in his essay "The Metaphysical Poets" and his book George Herbert. Herbert's strange imagery and poems shaped like objects were seen as uniquely inventive. He is still admired today for both the complexity of his perspective on Christianity, as well as the complexity of his poetry.

About Poem : 

‘Virtue’ by Geroge Herbert describes how the day, rose, and spring, all the beautiful things of nature, are inconstant in comparison to “a sweet and virtuous soul”.

This poem begins with a reference to the “sweet day”. Though it is so cool, calm, and bright, in the eve its beauty fades away. A rose which bids a rash gazer wipe his eye, its root is embedded in one’s grave. It means that the flower will also die in the future. Likewise, spring is also transient. The season comes for a short period of time each year. Then it bids goodbye to all. At the end of the poem, Herbert says the virtue of one’s soul is everlasting. It chiefly lives even though the whole world turns to coal.

Structure :

The poem ‘Virtue’ is highly structured. It has a set rhyme scheme and meter. To begin with, Herbert uses the ABAB rhyme scheme in this poem. For example, in the first stanza, “bright” rhymes with “to-night” (lines 1 and 3), and “sky” and “die” rhyme together (lines 2 and 4). This scheme is maintained throughout the piece for creating an internal  contrast between the lines.

Herbert wrote this poem iambic tetrameter. The last line of each stanza is in iambic dimeter. It means most of the lines consist of four iambs and the last line of each stanza contains two iambs. There is only one variation and it appears in the third stanza. Here, the poet uses elision.

Literary Devices

The following list includes the major literary devices used in Herbert’s poem ‘Virtue’.

Alliteration: It occurs in the very first line of the poem: “Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright.” This line also contains asyndeton.

Metaphor: “The bridal of the earth and sky,” “full of sweet days and roses,” etc.

Personification: “The dew shall weep thy fall to-night”

Refrain: Each stanza ends with the phrase “must die”. It is kind of a refrain. The last stanza differs from this scheme.

Imagery: In these lines, the rose’s bright red color is portrayed symbolically: “Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave”.

Epigram: “But though the whole world turn to coal,/ Then chiefly lives.”