52 Poems, Week 40: The Windows (George Herbert)
10/04/2018
(Note: the reference is to church windows; this poem is part of Herbert's long sequence The Church, which in turn is part of The Temple, which contains most of his English poetry.)
THE WINDOWS
LORD, how can man preach thy eternall word ?
He is a brittle crazie glasse :
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy Preachers, then the light and glorie
More rev'rend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows watrish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and aw: but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience ring.
*
This poem seems relevant to much that is happening in the Church today. I got the text from the excellent Luminarium, which is a repository of a huge amount of English literature. The link is to the editor's account of how and why she began and continues the site.
Herbert's parish church:
(By Busterweb at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52490091)
Interior views of the church, and a good deal of information about Herbert, here.
This reminds me so much of a night many years ago when I was praying with a few women, and one of them said that she "saw" the Blessed Mother sweeping up many shards of broken glass, and then she took them and made a beautiful vase out of them, and when my friend asked what the broken thing was, Mary said, "Something you thought was important."
I really like this poem. It's so true--both about men and about windows.
Our youngest granddaughter was baptized at St. Mary's Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, KY. It has more stained glass than any church I have ever been in. This was our view. It's the largest stained glass window in the world.
It's very frustrating that all the windows that were there when Herbert was alive have been replaced. I would love to see what he saw.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 10/04/2018 at 02:09 PM
Wow, that basilica window is really something.
Posted by: Mac | 10/04/2018 at 04:07 PM
Enlarge it and look at the stations under the window. They are mosaic, and right at eye level--very beautiful.
AMDG
Posted by: Janet | 10/04/2018 at 04:17 PM
I can't enlarge it enough to see them very clearly. But the window is more spectacular at the larger size.
Posted by: Mac | 10/04/2018 at 05:07 PM
I like this. I've read a little Herbert here and there but need to read more.
Posted by: Rob G | 10/08/2018 at 05:06 AM
I had been slowly working my way through The Temple a year or so ago, a poem every couple of days or so, and then put it aside for a while. There are, naturally, pieces I particularly liked, but I had trouble finding them when I started to do this post. Shoulda marked them.
Posted by: Mac | 10/08/2018 at 06:55 AM
Most of what I've read has been from 'The Country Parson' I think.
Posted by: Rob G | 10/08/2018 at 07:47 AM