Selected Poem - 'Gratefulnesse'

It is part of poetry’s appeal that all is not always what it seems. An initial reading can soon be challenged and brought up short. This poem is a good example - it begins as a devotional outpouring but look how it continues!

Gratefulnesse

Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a gratefull heart:
See how Thy beggar works on Thee
By art:

He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And says, if he in this be crost,
All Thou hast given him heretofore
Is lost.

But Thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.

Perpetuall knockings at Thy doore,
Tears sullying Thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift; much would have more,
And comes.

This notwithstanding, Thou went’st on,
And didst allow all us our noise;
Nay, Thou hast made a sigh and grone
Thy joyes.

Not that Thou hast not still above
Much better tunes then grones can make,
But that these country-aires Thy love
Did take.

Wherefore I crie, and crie again,
And in no quiet canst Thou be,
Till I a thankfull heart obtain
Of Thee.

Not thankfull when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

Commentary

The first two lines of the poem could be taken in isolation as an earnest and prayerful reminder to be thankful always for God’s goodness, perhaps in the same vein as a verse from Joseph Addison’s wonderful hymn of 1712: 'When all Thy mercies, O my God':

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart
To taste those gifts with joy.

But as the poem progresses, it seems that such is the weakness of our human condition that even an act or disposition of gratitude needs divine provenance – and persistence on the part of the poet: 'Thy beggar works on thee by art' (stanza 1); 'Perpetuall knockings at Thy doore' (stanza 4); 'I crie, and crie again' (stanza 7).

George Herbert leaves us in no doubt that God is gracious when beholding our noise, indeed our every 'sigh and grone'.

 

And the beggar’s request in the final stanza – not just a grateful heart from time to time, but one that is grateful all the time, continuously, as a beating pulse. Does this sound familiar? In 'Praise (II)', Herbert’s words for the well-known and much loved hymn 'King of Glory, King of Peace', the poet’s request has been granted:

Sev’n whole dayes, not one in seven,
I will praise thee.

'Gratefulnesse' has itself become a hymn, with music composed in 2007 by Edmund Hampton (at that time a pupil at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury). It is one of the hymns in our book 'Another Music', a beautiful collection of contemporary George Herbert hymn settings. It also features on our CD of these hymns 'George Herbert - Hymns New and Old', sung by Sarum Voices, which can be ordered direct from our Gift Shop

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