Herbert: Four Early Modern Poets on Repentance, Lent 2024

This year on Old Books with Grace, I am offering a Lent series on penitential poetry from Early Modern poets. That is, on poems of the past that reflect on one’s sin, on the need for forgiveness, on lament, on making things right, on conversion and satisfaction. In the spirit of Lent, this series will be stripped down to the essentials, which is something I’m trying to maintain in my own life this season. I will give you some background on the poet and poem, where you can find the poem, and translation information if need be. Then, I will read you the poem. I will offer five minutes of silence on the podcast. If you’d like to take this opportunity to meditate on the poem, here is space for you. Today's poem is The Agony by George Herbert. Philosophers have measur’d mountains,Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings,Walk’d with a staffe to heav’n, and traced fountains:But there are two vast, spacious things,The which to measure it doth more behove:Yet few there are that sound them; Sinne and Love.Who would know Sinne, let him repairUnto Mount Olivet; there shall he seeA man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,His skinne, his garments bloudie be.Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth painTo hunt his cruell food through ev’ry vein.Who knows not Love, let him assayAnd taste that juice, which on the crosse a pikeDid set again abroach; then let him sayIf ever he did taste the like.Love is that liquour sweet and most divine,Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.    

Om Podcasten

Listening to the past can help us to understand our present, but it is so difficult to read ancient works of literature and theology alone. I’m Dr. Grace Hamman, a scholar of medieval literature and mother of three. Old Books With Grace shares my love for old books and listens to the wisdom emanating from these long dead voices. My hope is that Old Books With Grace will empower you to approach often intimidating works of literature and theology and as a result, ask questions of our current age. We live in a time that values the new and the now more than ever. But I truly believe that these books speak outside of the echo-chambers in which we so often find ourselves and help us to find ageless truth from lost centuries.