Some of you may recall that in Lent 2019 I did a blog series on the poems of George Herbert, one a day during the forty days (not including the Sundays in Lent). I would like to do this again for Advent, although I may miss a day or two when I travel to London to attend the graduation ceremony of the School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Herbert’s The Temple has over one-hundred and sixty-four poems, and I covered only something like forty in my previous foray. So starting on Monday, November 29th I will begin another excursion, perhaps looking at twenty-three more poems before Christmas is upon us.

As before, the edition I am using is the Everyman’s Library volume, edited by Ann Pasternak Slater  (New York/London/Toronto: Knopf/Borzoi, 1995). This excellent volume also contains The Country Parson, selected letters, Herbert’s will, and Isaak Walton’s short biography. I will also refer to my copy of Arnold Stein’s George Herbert’s Lyrics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968), which, while old, is a comprehensive analysis of his English poems.

In my previous effort I dealt with the following poems; they are listed in the order in which they are printed in Pasternak Slater’s edition, and are hyper-linked to the appropriate post. I confess that it is strange to see these posts after more than two years – many of them I do not remember writing!

The Dedication
The Church-Porch (Peirirrhanterium)
Superliminare
The Altar
The Sacrifice
Redemption
Easter Wings (1)
Easter Wings (2)
Affliction (1)
Prayer (1)
Antiphon (1) Let All The World In Every Corner Sing
Jordan (1)
Employment (1)
Praise (1)
Mattins
Even-song
Church Monuments
The Church-floor
The Windows
Humility
Sunday
Avarice
Anagram
To Saints and Angels
The World
Coloss. 3.3
Lent
Justice (I)
Mortification
Decay
The British Church
Business
Hope
Sin’s Round
Divinity
The Pilgrimage
Praise (2)
The Call
A Dialogue-Anthem
Love (3)