Virtue
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
Lent is a forty day exercise in self-examination. And however much we might try to give such moral auditing a body swerve, the forty day season is inextricably linked with temptation, confession, repentance and soul repair.
What we are looking for is strengthened virtue. But virtue takes time. It is the accumulated ethical decisions and moral commitments that slowly become habits, which give shape to character, and eventually the fruit of the Spirit. Virtue.
This poem is Herbert in deconstruction mode. And what he dismantles is our often unexamined human capacity to take all of life's good for granted, to live for now, to postpone any thought that now is not forever. Carpe diem is a form of practical atheism; God is absent from the reckoning if we determine to live for now, with no thought for the future.
In three consecutive verses Herbert ruins the carefree party of life by insisting on mentioning, indeed shouting above the music, "you must die…all must die". He makes the announcement all the more shocking by contrasting the inevitable extinction of life by death, with the frequent use of a favourite word (sweet), which means intense vitality, lasting pleasure, pure harmony, breathtaking beauty.
Or as Herbert's finest contemporary critic says, "Herbert's concept of sweetness has no trace of sentimentality but covers the full range of meanings from sensual pleasure and artistic beauty to moral virtuousness and redemptive love." (Helen Wilcox, The English Poems of George Herbert, p. xliv)
Every day dies, despite the bridal promise of beauty and life; every rose withers, despite the colour, bloom and petal perfection; every spring gives way to fullness of life in summer, frutifulness in autumn, but then comes winter, and death.
Everything dies except. Except, "only a sweet and virtuous soul." And here Herbert uses one of my favourite images in all his poetry, "like seasoned timber, never gives." The long process of holiness is likened to timber as matured wood, exposed to the elements but now dried and hardened, made tough and firmly pliable, used in the building of ships which can stand the pressure and force of wind and ocean, and not give.
Herbert is too subtle to reduce such an image to one exegetical application. Yes, seasoned timber for the best, most sea worthy ship. Like seasoned timber the virtuous Christian is one who does not warp under pressure; because the virtuous Christian lives a cruciform life clinging to the seasoned timber of the cross; and if she does, then "though the whole world turn to coal," come Hell or high water, she will chiefly live!
Trust Herbert to get the resurrection in somewhere. That last line contains the concentrated hopefulness of Christian ethics; the seasoned timber that never gives, survives the fieriest of trials. Not far from Paul's lyrical ending, "Faith hope and love abide; but the greatest of these is love."
Perhaps during our season of Lent, it is time to be honest about the storms and waves, the pressures and forces of the society around us, that make it so hard to follow faithfully after Jesus. And to pray that conscience, will, heart and mind, the whole character of who we are, may become by the grace of God, "like seasoned timber, never gives….but chiefly lives."
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