CowPi Journal

Love

11 July 2006, 7 pm | Poem

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 lack’d any thing.

“A guest,” I answer’d, “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 marr’d 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.

— George Herbert (1633)