Selected Poem - 'Affliction (V)'

'The Temple' includes five poems with the title 'Affliction'; the best known, and probably the most autobiographical, is Affliction (I). In this poem, the last of the five, Herbert looks more generally at the afflictiion of mankind.

Affliction (V)

My God, I read this day,
That planted Paradise was not so firm,
As was and is thy floating Ark; whose stay
And anchor thou art onely, to confirm
And strengthen it in ev’ry age,
When waves do rise, and tempests rage.

At first we liv’d in pleasure;
Thine own delights thou didst to us impart;
When we grew wanton, thou didst use displeasure
To make us thine: yet that we might not part,
As we at first did board with thee,
Now thou wouldst taste our miserie.

There is but joy and grief;
If either will convert us, we are thine:
Some Angels us’d the first; if our relief
Take up the second, then thy double line
And sev’rall baits in either kinde
Furnish thy table to thy minde.

Affliction then is ours;
We are the trees, whom shaking fastens more,
While blustring winds destroy the wanton bowers,
And ruffle all their curious knots and store.
My God, so temper joy and woe,
That thy bright beams may tame thy bow.

Commentary

George Herbert's poetic reflections on life's ups and downs are not confined to the five 'Affliction' verses - for example, this is the theme for both 'The Collar' and 'The Flower'. But most are personal in character - in this poem he takes a wider view.

Herbert opens the poem with a reference to the source of all man's afflictions: the Garden of Eden and its association with Original Sin. According to the Bible, God's retribution is of course the Flood. In this first stanza Herbert invokes the story of Noah's Ark rescuing mankind, and God's covenant never to subject it to such a drastic punishment again. The underlying message is one of hope (often associated with 'anchor') in times of adversity.

The opening words of second stanza call to mind those of 'Affliction (I)' ('When first..') with Herbert reflecting in both poems how things started out well, but then went downhill. In this case it was the subsequent squandering of God's bounty that led to affliction - the Flood. In what can be seen as a clear reference to the Crucifixion, he goes on to suggest that his God demonstrates a willingness to empathise with human frailties through the life and death of Christ.

 

In the third stanza Herbert reduces the human experience to a simple dichotomy - happiness or misery, light or darkness - and proposes that in the long run both lead back to his God. Appropriately for a poem centring on the Flood, he invokes a fishing metaphor ('line' and 'baits'), and the catch furnishing the table is the human soul, and its subjection to the will of God.

Accepting the inevitability of human affliction, in the final stanza Herbert changes the metaphor to reflect on how well-established trees become more firmly rooted through exposure to high winds, which can devastate plants with weaker foundations. Here he seems to have in mind the superficially attractive but insubstantial ornamental gardens ('bowers' and 'knots') such as that laid out by his stepfather Sir John Danvers in Chelsea.

The poem ends with a reference back to the Flood and its aftermath, calling on God to maintain a balance in the two extremes of human experience and so keep His covenant with mankind. And as evidence of this assurance, the Bible tells of God sending the rainbow, with its message of hope.

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