My lovelinesse

I've made no secret of my love for the allegory of Beatrice and similar female literary figures. Today, I came across this piece from Herbert's Temple, and it complicates (in a good way) the human/divine mirror of love I find in these allegories. Earthly relationships can be exquisite pictures of that between God and Man, but there remains an ineffability to God's love for us that transcends anything we will ever experience on earth. To follow the train of thought in Hebrews, the best of this life still pales in comparison with the heavenly reality it anticipates. As Herbert's contemporary, Lewis Bayly wrote, "Whatsoever excellency thou hast seen in any creature, it is nothing but a sparkle of that which is in infinite perfection in God."

On another note, what led me to this poem has been an ongoing fight with complacency of late. This has been perhaps the most taxing semester I've yet had, and I'm living in the numbness of survival mode. I don't want the imminence of my deadlines, papers, and meetings to overshadow the reality of the grace I daily receive in the Gospel.

Why do I languish thus, drooping and dull,
                        As if I were all earth?
O give me quicknesse, that I may with mirth
                                          Praise thee brim-full!

The wanton lover in a curious strain
                        Can praise his fairest fair;
And with quaint metaphors her curled hair
                                          Curl o’re again.

Thou art my lovelinesse, my life, my light,
                        Beautie alone to me:
Thy bloudy death and undeserv’d, makes thee
                                          Pure red and white.

When all perfections as but one appeare,
                        That those thy form doth show,
The very dust, where thou dost tread and go,
                                          Makes beauties here;

Where are my lines then? my approaches? views?
                        Where are my window-songs?
Lovers are still pretending, & ev’n wrongs
                                          Sharpen their Muse:

But I am lost in flesh, whose sugred lyes
                        Still mock me, and grow bold:
Sure thou didst put a minde there, if I could
                                          Finde there it lies.

Lord, cleare thy gift, that with a constant wit
                        I may but look towards thee:
Look onely; for to love thee, who can be,
                                         What angel fit?

George Herbert, "Dulnesse"