A wreathed garland of deserved praise,
Of praise deserved, unto thee I give,
I give to thee, who knowest all my ways,
My crooked winding ways, wherein I live,
Wherein I die, not live: for all times is straight,
Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee,
To thee, who art more far above deceit,
Then deceit seems above simplicity.
Give me simplicity, that I’ll live,
So live and like, that I’ll know thy ways,
Know them and practise them: then shall I give
For this poor wreath, give thee a crown of praise.
WREATHS have been made in Europe for the reason that time of the Etruscans. In our own time, people often associate them with death, but their important significance up to now was as an indication of victory, as in ancient Greece where, product of olive leaves, a wreath could be placed on the pinnacle of the victor within the Olympic Games. Sometimes, the association with death and the sign of victory are combined, each in the traditional world and now, as within the Remembrance Sunday ceremony.
This beautiful and highly crafted poem itself takes the shape of a wreath, as will probably be explored later. The poem is about praise, deserved praise, made even by someone whose ways are “crooked” and “winding”. A crooked and winding life is one which results in death. Here, death means not only physical death, but death within the sense of being cut off from God. In the Hebrew criptures, the persons are given the alternative of life or death, true life, that’s life in union with God. So on this poem in line 6 we now have the choice to death, which is a life that’s
Straight as a line,
and ever tends to thee.
THE winding life is characterised by deceit and self-deception; for we’re reluctant to properly know ourselves. This is in sharp contrast to the honest self-knowledge and ease of the truly good life. Here we now have the road, “Give me simplicity, that I’ll live”, discussed in relation to an earlier poem. So the poet ends by asking that he might live like that, each knowing and practising the way in which of God. If that happens then he’ll “For this poor wreath, give thee a crown of praise”.
The point here is that the wreath is made by threading a branch out and in, which is one of the best we are able to do. But if we live it as true as we are able to it’ll be not only a garland to hold around the neck, which is such a frequent and beautiful custom in India when someone is welcomed, but a chaplet that goes on the pinnacle, just like the crown of thorns, but on this case “a crown of praise”.
IF WE look back on the poem, we see it takes the shape of a winding wreath, the last word of every line being repeated near the start of the following. Then, again the last word of every of the primary 4 lines is repeated within the last 4 lines of the poem but in reverse order in order that the “deserved praise” of the primary line involves a climax in “a crown of praise” within the last line. The whole poem, like our lives, is an interlacing, but with the potential of making a crown at the top. It is Herbert’s poetic mastery at its highest, without losing the essential simplicity of his theme, which is praise. An extra musicality is given to the poem by the repeated use of the words “give” and “live”.
Herbert is above all a poet of praise. In a cynical age, praise doesn’t come easily. There is, as W. B. Yeats put it in “The Seven Sages”:
A levelling, rancorous, levelling type of mind
That never looked out of the attention of a saint
Or a drunkard’s eye.
Praise begins in recognising something good, then appreciating and admiring it. It takes us out of ourselves as we concentrate on what is worth it in itself. Sometimes, the great is so good we’re astonished and lost for words. For those keen on tennis, it happened when Roger Federer was at his peak. It felt a privilege to have lived at a time when he played. Other people will give you the option to attract examples from elsewhere: perhaps ballet or football, music or gymnastics.
THE important purpose of getting minds like ours is to find the things which might be of real value, setting aside all shams, shows and stunts to know what’s going to last — the sort of qualities we saw within the late Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, which the country as a complete, even republicans, were capable of recognise and praise.
Suppose we come to recognise that there’s a reality that is nice, all good, supreme good, our true and everlasting good. Then there could be praise indeed. Herbert recognised this reality, which is why he was a poet of praise who desired to sing “My God and King” all his days. Christopher Smart, who wrote a famous poem about his cat praising God, also wrote, in 1776, in his long praise poem “A Song to David”:
Praise above all — for praise prevails;
Heap up the measure, load the scales,
And good to goodness add:
The gen’rous soul her saviour aids,
But peevish obloquy degrades;
The Lord is great and glad.
The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth is a former Bishop of Oxford. This is an edited extract from his book Wounded I Sing: From Advent to Christmas with George Herbert, published by SPCK Publishing at £10.99 (Church Times Bookshop £8.79); 978-0-281-08942-0.
