Selected Poem - 'The Crosse'

With its obvious reference to Christ's crucifixion, this is an appropriate poem on which to reflect in a commentary written during Holy Week. As with so many of Herbert's poems, it takes the form of a conversation with his God.

The Crosse

What is this strange and uncouth thing?
To make me sigh, and seek, and faint, and die,
Untill I had some place, where I might sing,
And serve thee; and not onely I,
But all my wealth and familie might combine
To set thy honour up, as our designe.

And then when after much delay,
Much wrastling, many a combate, this deare end,
So much desir'd, is giv'n, to take away
My power to serve thee; to unbend,
All my abilities, my designes confound,
And lay my threatnings bleeding on the ground.

One ague dwelleth in my bones,
Another in my soul (the memorie
What I would do for thee, if once my grones
Could be allow'd for harmonie):
I am in all a weak disabled thing.
Save in the sight thereof, where strength doth sting.

Besides, things sort not to my will,
Ev'n when my will doth studie thy renown:
Thou turnest th'edge of all things on me still,
Taking me up to throw me down:
So that, ev'n when my hopes seem to be sped,
I am to grief alive, to them as dead.

To have my aim, and yet to be
Further from it then when I bent my bow;
To make my hopes my torture, and the fee
Of all my woes another wo,
Is in the midst of delicates to need,
And ev'n in Paradise to be a weed.

Ah my deare Father, ease my smart!
These contrarieties crush me: these crosse actions
Doe winde a rope about, and cut my heart:
And yet since these thy contradictions
Are properly a crosse felt by thy Sonne,
With but foure words, my words, Thy will be done.

Commentary

This is one of George Herbert's later poems and, together with Afflicton(I), it is definitely autobiographical although, in this case, the issue is his poor health rather than any want of suitable employment. It is a cross he has to bear.

However, in the opening stanza, Herbert does make reference to the difficulties he had experienced in identifying and securing an outlet for his talents and the fact that, at long last, he had found his niche. Presumably he is referring to his decision to relinquish all his secular ambitions, become ordained and enter the priesthood; to 'sing, and serve thee'. It was something his mother Magdalen had long desired.

So in the next stanza he expresses his profound disappointment that, having finally settled on his future, it seems to him that God has placed yet anothet obstacle in his path. His decline in health could well nullify all his previous trials and sacrifices, and end up frustrating his desire to serve. His use of the word 'bleeding' is a clear reference to Christ's suffering on the cross.

 

He goes on to complain that, not only is he suffering from shivering and sicknss ('ague') but he is also sick at heart because his weak health is preventing him from following his calling. He sees this all too clearly, perhaps recognising even at this early stage that his condition is incurable.

In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Herbert complains that, just as his future was becoming settled, God has put such an uncontrollable obstacle in his path on top of all the others he has had to deal with in getting to this point in his life. Having found his vocation and, as he puts it in 'The Country Parson', identified 'a mark to aim at', he is in danger of being frustrated by his frailty.

The final stanza opens with a plea to his God to afford him an improvement in his health, to relieve him of the burden of the cross that is causing him such distress. But then he recalls Christ's appeal to God in the Garden of Gethsamane to 'let this cup pass from me', and ends the poem in the same way as Christ - he places himself in God's hands.

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