The Complete English Poems

George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language. His deceptively simple verse uses the ingenious arguments typical of seventeenth-century metaphysical poets and unusual imagery drawn from musical structures, the natural world, and domestic activity to explore a mosaic of Biblical themes. From the wit and wordplay of “The Puley” and the formal experimentation of “Easter Wings” and “Paradise,” to the intense, highly personal relationship between man and God portrayed in “The Collar” and “Redemption,” the works collected here show the transcendental power of divine love. This vast collection includes all Herbert’s English poems, selections from his Latin poetry with translations, his major prose work A Priest to the Temple, and Izaak Walton’s Life of Herbert.

George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language. His deceptively simple verse uses the ingenious arguments typical of seventeenth-century metaphysical poets and unusual imagery drawn from musical structures, the natural world, and domestic activity to explore a mosaic of Biblical themes. From the wit and wordplay of “The Puley” and the formal experimentation of “Easter Wings” and “Paradise,” to the intense, highly personal relationship between man and God portrayed in “The Collar” and “Redemption,” the works collected here show the transcendental power of divine love. This vast collection includes all Herbert's English poems, selections from his Latin poetry with translations, his major prose work A Priest to the Temple, and Izaak Walton's Life of Herbert.

George Herbert (1593—1633) was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was appointed reader in rhetoric in 1618 and public orator in 1620. He attracted the attention of influential patrons, including King James I, before he took holy orders in 1626.
John Tobin is a professor of English literature at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.