I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6

Love (III)
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
from my first entrance in,
drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
if I lacked any thing.

“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here.”
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?“
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

This is a poem written by George Herbert (1593 – 1633) shortly before he died. It is the third of three poems he wrote titled “Love.” The first two contrast earthly love with Immortal Love. This one stages the resolution. Herbert described the poems as “a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master.”

The poem records a conversation between a hesitant soul and God. Love is both host and Lord. The poem’s speaker, ashamed, “guilty of dust and sin,” offering to serve rather than sit as guest, finally accepts that he was still welcome at God’s table. The hesitant soul sits down and eats. The scene is a fusion of several scriptural images:
– the banquet/wedding-feast parables;
– the Song of Solomon’s invitation and the beloved’s withdrawal;
– Christ as the one who “bore the blame;”
– the Eucharist (“taste my meat”).

Written in 1633, some might think that the poem might suffer from a rewrite in more contemporary language. It is impossible to do so and keep the sense of place, meter, and rhyming scheme. Spend some time with it. If you have a Biblical relationship with God you will get it.