Sunday
The weather seems to have finally changed, and as I look at the fading flowers on our deck, I think of George Herbert’s description of himself as a nipped blossom hanging discontented.
“Denial” is one of many poems in which the poet laments his inability to experience God’s presence. Although he wears out his knees praying, the poet says, God does not appear to hear him. Instead, like the stricken flower or like an untuned and unstrung instrument that lies forgotten in a corner, Herbert feels abandoned, his breast “full of fear and disorder.”
Among the multiple metaphors he uses for his disconsolate state is a brittle bow that flies asunder when the archer draws it back, with the arrow going who knows where. We’ve all experienced those moments when we cannot focus our mind—“the monkey mind,” some call it– and Herbert reports that some of his “bent thoughts” “would to pleasures go,/ Some to the wars and thunder/ Of alarms.” In other words, sometimes he is distracted by illicit desires, sometimes by various worries.” I can certainly relate.
On Herbert’s use of the bow metaphor, it’s useful to remember that the word “sin,” as used by both the Hebrews and the Greeks, was originally an archery term meaning to miss the mark. The poet’s words are not hitting their mark, although the poet partly accuses God for the problem. Herbert’s devotions cannot pierce God’s silent ears.
Why should God “give dust a tongue” and then refuse to hear the tongue crying out, Herbert wonders despairingly and perhaps even angrily.
Having so vented, however, the poet concludes by assuring us that his untuned, unstrung instrument has been mended and that he can finally be at one with the divine. Perhaps we need to vent a bit before we can get right with God, which is certainly the theme of Herbert’s well-known poem “The Collar.”
In any event, each stanza of “Denial” until the last one has ended on a discordant note, with the final word landing like a wrong note, rhyming with nothing that has come before. The last stanza, however, ends with a rhyming couplet, like a chord resolving itself. God has answered the poet’s request.
Denial
By George Herbert
When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears,
Then was my heart broken, as was my verse;
My breast was full of fears
And disorder.
My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow,
Did fly asunder:
Each took his way; some would to pleasures go,
Some to the wars and thunder
Of alarms.
“As good go anywhere,” they say,
“As to benumb
Both knees and heart, in crying night and day,
Come, come, my God, O come!
But no hearing.”
O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue
To cry to thee,
And then not hear it crying! All day long
My heart was in my knee,
But no hearing.
Therefore my soul lay out of sight,
Untuned, unstrung:
My feeble spirit, unable to look right,
Like a nipped blossom, hung
Discontented.
O cheer and tune my heartless breast,
Defer no time;
That so thy favors granting my request,
They and my mind may chime,
And mend my rhyme.
