Herbert's "Daily Labour": An Eschatological Pattern in "The Church"

Herbert's "Daily Labour": An Eschatological Pattern in "The Church" by John Bienz When John Cosin published A Collection of Private Devotions in 1627, he attempted to revive the old tradition of canonical hours of prayer, an attempt that sparked a sharp attack on Cosin and his book for its alleged Popery. However, as P.G. Stanwood has shown, Cosin's book was firmly within the reformed tradition of the English Church.1 Its purpose was to provide a basis for daily and hourly private worship that nevertheless would "interlock" with the Book of Common Prayer (p. xxxi). Toward these goals Cosin recommended the memorization of short prayers including the following one (based on Psalm 90) to be said "When wee heare the Clock at any hour of the day": Teach me, O Lord, to number my dayes that I may applie my heart unto wisdome. Our time passeth away like a shadow, and we bring our dayes to an end, like a tale that is told. Have mercy upon mee, O Lord, now, and at the houre of death, (p. 67) The poetry of George Herbert is also based in part on the Book of Common Prayer, particularly the Liturgical Year sequence in "The Church" (from "The Altar" through "Lent"), but beyond this section, Herbert's poetry is informed by the constant eschatological preparation that marks Cosin's prayer above. I wish to show that Herbert's concern with preparation for the end of time (either as the day of Christ's return or as the moment of one's death) is pervasive in "The Church," especially after poems with Prayer Book titles cease. This eschatological theme, however, is subdued. It is much less formal than Cosin's revival of the canonical hours and not at all obtrusive, as the 2 John Bienz apocalyptic language of Herbert's contemporaries so frequently was. The theme first develops among the poems based on the Prayer Book and provides continuity between that section of "The Church" and the concluding sequence of poems with explicitly eschatological titles and concerns (from "Death" through "Love" [III]). The first references that link the ordinary, daily passage of time to eternity and the Last Day occur in "The Church-porch" (see especially lines 451-56). In the context of that poem's Polonian didacticism, however, these references seem merely commonsensical. They gain force, if at all, only retrospectively in light of the clarification that takes place in "The Chi-ch," particularly in the Liturgical Year section. As CA. Patrides has observed, Herbert's allusions to the end of time are frequent, but they are also "low key."2In keeping with the conviction of one predestined for salvation, they are also positive and emphasize anticipated joy in God's presence rather than damnation.3 Often the "day" or "hour" referred to signifies a moment when the speaker feels particularly close to God as he knows he will be at the end of time. In the poems before "Christmas" and "Lent," such moments are usually occasions explicitly linked to the formal cycle of worship by Herbert's use of titles drawn from the Prayer Book. In the poem "Good Friday," for example, the speaker asks for continual sacramental identification with Christ "each houre" until death: Then let each houre Of my whole life one grief devoure; That thy distresse through all may runne, And be my sunne. (II. 13-16)4 In "Easter," "this most high day" (1. 12), the speaker exclaims, "Can there be any day but this . . ."(1. 27), as if all time must be made to give way to the moment of Resurrection. In "Easterwings ," the speaker can "feel this day thy victorie" (1. 18), and he hopes thereby to fly out of a fallen and sinful world. "Prayer" (I) calls prayer, "The six-daies world transposing in an houre" (I. 7), a means by which ordinary time can be compressed or transcended. In "Mattens," the speaker sees God's presence in the morning light as a promise of eternal day and adds with joy, "Then we must needs for that day make a match" (I. 4); in "Even-song," he recognizes typologically that as night...