This poem
is a good example of a visual poem.
Describe the visual pattern that the words make on the page.
Is the poem
more than just a picture? How does this
poem also engage your mind and emotion? How does it also use sounds,
such as rhyme and rhythm, to attract your ears?
Herbert was
an Anglican minister, and this poem presents some of his religious
beliefs. He believed, for example, that sin caused the "fall" of
humanity from the Garden of Eden. He also believed that Jesus Christ,
when He rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, redeemed people from sin
and restored them to their original spiritual "wealth and store." How
are these religious views about people's fall and rising again
reflected in the form and content of the poem?
One of the
themes of this poem is human diminution and regrowth. How do the visual
pattern and sounds emphasize that theme?
from The Seventeenth
Century Literature site of The University of Nebraska at Omaha
