Easter –
Rise heart: thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more just.
Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.
Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.
I got me flowers to straw thy way;
I got me boughs off many a tree:
But thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.
The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, & th’East perfume;
If they should offer to contest
With thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
‘Easter’ is from The Temple, a collection of over one hundred and fifty devotional lyrics by George Herbert. Lyric poems are written as if spoken (or sung) by one voice. Readers are often encouraged to feel as if the poem is addressed directly to them or, in other cases, that they are overhearing the poet’s private meditations. This gives an impression of great intimacy. It also produces a sense of authenticity. Because of this, lyrics have always been popular forms for love poetry. For the very same reason they have also been a natural choice for writing about religious belief.
‘Easter’ is Hebert’s personal reworking of Psalm 57 and is an act of emotional confession. It is a picture of a spiritual journey. The first three stanzas evoke an excited tension which is replaced in the last three stanzas by a simplicity that Herbert believes is the true essence of Easter.
Tension is created in the first half of the poem by commands; ‘Rise heart’, ‘Awake, my lute’, ‘let thy blessed Spirit bear a part’. The speaker is addressing himself. This is an expression of his feeling that the extraordinary circumstances of Easter require an extraordinary response. Energy and movement are created by repetitions in the opening stanzas. Each begins with a command to action. The word ‘rise’ opens and closes the first four lines, with the variant ‘risen’ between them. Haste is suggested by the injunction that Christ’s praise be sung ‘without delayes’ and difficulty by the command that the speaker’s lute ‘struggle for thy part’. This slides into physical pain when the tightness of the lute’s strings is compared to the ‘stretched sinews’ of Christ on the cross. A restless energy is also expressed by the stanza form. The alternations of long lines with short create ever-changing patterns of speed and rhythm.
But what is it that the speaker thinks he should do? He tells himself to rejoice, but this sits uneasily with memories of the pain of crucifixion. An intimate, bodily relationship with Christ is
recognised in the promise that he ‘takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise / With him may rise’. But soon afterwards the speaker uses a complicated metaphor, based on alchemy, to
explain how the crucifixion has purified his soul in the same way that gold can be refined: ‘as his death calcined thee to dust / His life may make thee gold’.
These tensions are resolved in the last three stanzas. The stanzas are simpler, with lines now the same length. Phrases such as ‘I got me flowers’ sounded old-fashioned and naïve
even in Herbert’s time. The speaker moves away from complicated metaphors.
The questions raised in the first half are given an answer: there is nothing to strive for, because Christ has already accomplished everything for the speaker. Whilst the first half of the poem was addressed by the speaker to himself, urging himself to rejoice appropriately, the second half is addressed to Christ. The speaker recognises that whilst he was busying himself to celebrate (he imagines himself collecting flowers) ‘thou was up by brake of day’. In other words, Christ has beaten him to it ‘and brought’st thy sweets along with thee’. There is no need for the speaker to do anything; he has merely to accept the good news of the eternal day which he imagines in the last stanza.
This is a form of submission. The complicated introspection of the opening stanzas gives way to the plain thankfulness of the last three. For Herbert, this is an essential part of the Easter festival; it is a time to be simply grateful for what Christ has accomplished for the faithful. We are encouraged to share this conclusion. The relative simplicity of the concluding stanzas acts as a sign of personal sincerity on the poet’s part, and the poem’s aesthetic resolution asks to be matched by intellectual assent (or belief). Four hundred years ago, Herbert could be sure of a readership that shared his faith. That his poem can still succeed today is testament to its careful crafting.
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