"AND ALL MUST DIE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19328, 15 May 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

"AND ALL MUST DIE."

Tn the National Gallery there is a picturo of George Herbert composing this poem in his garden at Bemeton, in Wiltshire, the village of which he was rector from 1630 to his death three years later. He wrote, some of the most exquisite sacred poetry in the language, hut, in accordance with the fashion of his ago, he. uses strange figures and similes, as in the last verse of tho following lyrical masterpiece:— Sweet day, so cool, so calm, bo bright, The bridal of tho earth and sky, Tho dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave. Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye. Thy root ir ever in its t'rave. And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days roses, A box where sweets compacted lie. My music shows you have your closes, And all must dio. Only a. sweet and virtuous soul. Like seasoned timber, never gives; But though the whole world turns to coal, Then chiefly lives. . «