Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury

Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury Poems

Black beamy hairs, which so seem to arise
From the extraction of those eyes,
That into you she destin-like doth spin
...

TEARS, flow no more, or if you needs must flow,
Fall yet more slow,
Do not the world invade,
From smaller springs than yours rivers have grown,
...

Must I then see, alas, eternal night
Sitting upon those fairest eyes,
And closing all those beams, which once did rise
So radiant and bright
...

Here lies King James, who did so propagate
Unto the World that blest and quiet state
Wherein his Subjects liv'd, he seem'd to give
...

Come hither Womankind and all their worth,
Give me thy kisses as I call them forth.
Give me the billig-kiss, that of the dove,
...

Thou Black, wherein all colours are compos'd,
And unto which they all at last return,
Thou colour of the Sun where it doth burn,
...

Breaking from under that thy cloudy veil,
Open and shine yet more, shine out more clear,
Thou glorious golden-beam-darting hair,
...

I SAY, 'tis hard to write Satires. Though Ill
Great'ned in his long course, and swelling still.
Be now like to a Deluge, yet, as Nile,
'Tis doubtful in his original. This while
...

Thus ends my Love, but this doth grieve me most,
That so it ends, but that ends too, this yet,
Besides the Wishes, hopes and time I lost,
...

Black beauty, which above that common light,
Whose Power can no colours here renew
But those which darkness can again subdue,
...

Now that the April of your youth adorns
The garden of your face;
Now that for you each knowing lover mourns,
And all seek to your grace;
...

Regardful Pretence! whose fix'd Majesty
Darts Admiration on the gazing Look,
That brings it not: State sits inthron'd in thee,
...

Having interred her infant-birth,
The watery ground that late did mourn,
Was strewed with flowers for the return
...

Exalted Mind! whose Character doth bear
The first Idea of Perfection, whence
Adam's came, and stands so, how canst appear
...

Uncessant Minutes, whil'st you move you tell
The time that tells our life, which though it run
Never so fast or farr, you'r new begun
Short steps shall overtake; for though life well
...

16.

Deep sighs, records of my unpitied grief,
Memorials of my true though hopeless love,
...

I SING her worth and praises, I,
Of whom a Poet cannot lie.
The little World the Great shall blaze,
Sea, Earth, her Body ; Heaven, her Face,
...

Fatal Aspect! that hast an Influence
    More powerful far than those Immortal Fires
That but incline the Will and move the Sense,
...

Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury Biography

Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (3 March 1583 – 20 August 1648) was a British soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher. The De religione gentilium was a posthumous work, influenced by the De theologia gentili of Gerardus Vossius, and seen into print by Isaac Vossius. It is an early work on comparative religion, and gives, in David Hume's words, "a natural history of religion." It is also to some extent dependent on the De dis Syris of John Selden, and the Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim of Marin Mersenne. By examining pagan religions Herbert finds the universality of his five great articles, and that these are clearly recognizable. The same vein is maintained in the tracts De causis errorum, an unfinished work on logical fallacies, Religio laici, and Ad sacerdotes de religione laici (1645). Herbert's first historical work was the Expeditio Buckinghami ducis, a defence of the Duke of Buckingham's conduct on the La Rochelle expedition of 1627. The Life and Raigne of King Henry VIII (1649) is considered good for its period, but hampered by limited sources. His poems, published in 1665 (reprinted and edited by John Churton Collins in 1881), show him in general a faithful disciple of Donne. His satires are poor, but a few of his lyrical verses show power of reflection and true inspiration, while his use of the metre afterwards employed by Tennyson in his "In Memoriam" is particularly happy and effective. His Neo-Latin poems are evidence of his scholarship. Three of these had appeared together with the De causis errorum in 1645. To these works must be added A Dialogue between a Tutor and a Pupil[16], which is of disputed authenticity;[ and a treatise on the king's supremacy in the Church (manuscript in the Record Office and at the Queen's College, Oxford). His well-known autobiography, first published by Horace Walpole in 1764, a naïve and amusing narrative, is much occupied with his duels and amorous adventures, and breaks off in 1624. Missing from it are his friendships and the diplomatic side of his embassy in France, in relation to which he only described the splendour of his retinue and his social triumphs. He was a lutenist, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Lute-Book survives in manuscript.)

The Best Poem Of Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury

To Her Hair

Black beamy hairs, which so seem to arise
From the extraction of those eyes,
That into you she destin-like doth spin
The beams she spares, what time her soul retires,
And by those hallowed fires,
Keeps house all night within.

Since from within her awful front you shine,
As threads of life which she doth twine,
And thence ascending with your fatal rays,
Do crown those temples, where Love's wonders wrought
We afterwards see brought
To vulgar light and praise.

Lighten through all your regions, till we find
The causes why we are grown blind,
That when we should your glories comprehend
Our sight recoils, and turneth back again,
And doth, as 'twere in vain,
Itself to you extend.

Is it because past black there is not found
A fixed or horizontal bound?
And so, as it doth terminate the white,
It may be said all colors to infold,
And in that kind to hold
Somewhat of infinite?

Or is it that the center of our sight
Being veiled in its proper night
Discerns your blackness by some other sense
Than that by which it doth pied colors see,
Which only therefore be
Known by their difference?

Tell us, when on her front in curls you lie
So diapred from that black eye.
That your reflected forms may make us know
That shining light in darkness all would find,
Were they not upward blind
With the sunbeams below.

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