The Pulley- George Herbert

              THE PULLEY.                    

When God at first made man, 

Having a glass of blessings standing by, 

“Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. 

Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie, 

Contract into a span.” 

So strength first made a way; 

Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure. 

When almost all was out, God made a stay, 

Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, 

Rest in the bottom lay. 

“For if I should,” said he, 

“Bestow this jewel also on my creature, 

He would adore my gifts instead of me, 

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature; 

So both should losers be. 

“Yet let him keep the rest, 

But keep them with repining restlessness; 

Let him be rich and weary, that at least, 

If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 

May toss him to my breast.” 

About the Poet

George Herbert was born in to a noble Welsh family on April 3, 1593. His poetry was influenced chiefly by the puritanical stance of the 17th century in which he was born. After graduation from the University, he was ordained as a priest and served in a little church in Bemerton. His major collection of poems titled “The Temple” was published after his death.

George Herbert was an Anglican priest, theologian, and poet. Born into a wealthy family, he was very well educated and attended Trinity College in Cambridge. He briefly served in Parliament in 1624-25. In his mid-thirties, he gave up his secular career and was ordained a priest in the Church of England. He served as rector of a small parish 75 miles southwest of London and was known for his dedication to his parishioners and those who were needy and ill.

Herbert was a remarkable preacher and a brilliant writer of religious poems, many of which were put into popular hymns. He wrote in Greek, Latin, and English. Known for his humility, quiet devotion and saintly character, Herbert died on the 1stof March 1633.

Structure of the Poem

The poem does not hold a specific rhythm. It has 4 stanzas of the poem, the first and the last lines of each stanza are of equal trimeter but the second, third, and fourth are not clearly equal in each stanza.

The poem “The Pulley” by George Herbert has a to total of 20 lines, each line with end rhyme pattern of ABABA, CDCDC. The first stanza is  about the reason God endowed man during creation, the second stanza showed all the endowments, the third stanza is about the reason God gave man a companion, the last stanza is about how all the blessings and possessions given will lead man back to God’s bosom.

Analysis of the Poem

The poem that reveals that when God created man, he created him with lots of blessings like strength, beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure but then, He placed man under a contract that will put him and his possessions to an end at certain period of time:

The first stanza describes how God made man and blessed him with worldly riches: “When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by”. The stanza also portrays the concept of Trinity as seen in the Biblical creation story in Genesis: “Let us, said he pour on him all we can” (Note the use of the phrase “Let us”).

In the second stanza, God actually poured his blessings of strength, beauty, wisdom, honour and pleasure on man but withheld one important blessing- The Gift of Rest: “Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay”.

In the third stanza, God gave his reason for withholding the gift of rest from man. He withdrew this blessing because he felt giving man the gift of rest would make him conceited or excessively proud and man may not worship him: “He would adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in nature, not the God of Nature”.

In the fourth  stanza, man is thrown into perpetual restlessness so that he can always remember his creator and turn back to him, whether as a result of goodness or weariness. “Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness may toss him to my breast” .

Mood and Tone
The mood as well as the tone is reflective. The poem is a product of the poet’s long, quiet and thoughtful reflection on the Biblical creation story.

The Pulley by George Herbert: Summary and Analysis

The Pulley by George Herbert is a religious, metaphysical poem which centers on the ‘pulley’ as a prime conceit in the poem. Herbert wants to unveil the truth that why human beings are so restless and unsatisfying despite having all the things he wants.

After God made this universe, he gathered all the blessings of the world in a glass and distributed them to the human beings one after another. First, he gave the strength, therefore human became strong enough to survive. One by one, god gave them the beauty, wisdom, honor, pleasure and many other blessings. When almost all was gone, God kept ‘rest’ at the bottom of the glass, thinking that ‘both should losers be’ if the ‘rest’ is given. When they get all they want, in the sense of sufficiency, they may forget God. On one hand, when human beings get rest, they forget god and take a rest. As a result, god will lose the love and affection of human beings.  On the other hand, when rest is given, people will lose strength, honor, wisdom and beauty and all other human capacities. God knows the man is by birth prone to lethargy. They will get rest at the cost of the progress. Progress and the rest never come together. We get one losing the other. God is sure that man will only praise the things God has given to them not the god himself. Mankind will lose their essence, get tired and wander in search of rest.

In the concluding part of the poem, Herbert gives two reasons behind human going to god. First, they will go to God out of the goodness, faith or divine emotions and inborn loyalty for him. Secondly, if they do not go to god out of the first cause, they will go to him when they are tired. Weariness takes human beings to the shadow of god. So, the God decides to keep the mankind away from the rest so as to make him feel the eternal rest can only be found in God. For the sake of the rest, at least man will remember to god and go to him for his love and rest. The repining restlessness or the discontentment with the worldly things will finally lead a man to god. He wanted man to discover the real rest only in Him. He alone can truly give the mankind the rest they frantically seek.

The poet answers in a simple tone that the reason behind man being so unsatisfying and weary is that God has not bestowed us with his precious jewel ‘rest’, but kept the jewel ‘rest’ with him. So for the sake of rest, we always run from here to there. We think now we are complete because we have everything, but the moment we feel so, another moment we feel empty and become restless. This is what exactly God wants us to be. If this happens to us then only we remember god and go to him for the ‘rest.’

The title of the poem the pulley is a conceit that carries the theme of the poem. In pulley from the mechanical point of view to operate it a kind of power and force has to be applied to one end to lift the object of the other end. The force applied makes a difference to the weight that is being lifted. The ‘rest’ that god keeps with him is the leverage that draws the mankind towards god. Two quite different objects are forcefully compared here, one from the pure physics that is pulley and the other from the pure religion that is God. The relationship of man and god is compared with the metaphorical pulley. To pull mankind back to the God, back to his origin, God keeps man away from the ‘rest.’ This can only be possible in the metaphysical conceits. So the title is thematic.

Commentary

The poem is built around the conceit of imagining God in the process of making human beings. It has echoes of the story of creation in the opening of the Bible, the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. (Herbert uses the word “man” in the sense of “humankind” as was typical of all writers in his era.)

The poem imagines God adding different qualities to this new creation, pouring them in as a cook might pour ingredients in a cake. He is a generous Creator. All His blessings, all the world’s riches, are given to humankind, except for one.

“Rest” in the Christian tradition is one of God’s gifts. Jesus said “Come to me all that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11.28) “Rest” is also used as a picture of the destiny God promises to those who walk in His way, a picture of heaven. It is a precious “jewell”.

God pauses before He adds this final gift. If He gives this, people may “adore my gifts instead of me”. Some commentators have seen this as God being manipulative, not giving human beings the gift of rest so as to make them turn to Him. Herbert’s response is in the final line of that verse. If someone finds satisfaction in God’s gifts and does not come to know God Himself, then both God and the person are impoverished, “both should losers be”..

He starts the final verse with a pun playing on another meaning of the word “rest” - “remainder, what is left”. Human beings are both richly endowed, but also “wearie” – dissatisfied, tired of what they have. And this weariness tosses – flings – them into God’s embrace, like a restless, unhappy child wanting to be hugged and flinging itself into its father’s arms.

Brief Analysis of Herbert's Conceit of The Pulley

It would be difficult to explain Herbert's poem without alluding to Pandora's box of gifts. The gods, especially Zeus, gave Pandora a box, warning her never to open it. Her curiosity overcame her, however, and she opened it, releasing innumerable plagues and sorrows into the world. Only Hope, the one good thing the box had contained, remained to comfort humanity in its misfortunes. In this poem, the fusion of the classical and the Christian add richness and dimension to the poem's guiding metaphysical conceit, which is a pulley that draws man slowly toward God.

Pulleys and hoists are mechanical devices aimed at assisting us with moving heavy loads through a system of ropes and wheels (pulleys) to gain advantage. We should not be surprised at the use of a pulley as a central conceit since the domain of physics and imagery from that discipline would have felt quite comfortable to most of the metaphysical poets.

In the poem, the central idea posited by Herbert is that when God made man, he poured all his blessings on him, including strength, beauty, wisdom, honor and pleasure. However, as in Pandora's box, one element remained. We are told that God "made a stay," that is, He kept "Rest in the bottome." We might, in modern parlance, call this God's ace. God is aware that if He were to bestow this "jewel" (i.e. rest) on Man as well then Man would adore God's gifts instead of God Himself. God has withheld the gift of rest from man knowing fully well that His other treasures would one day result in a spiritual restlessness and fatigue in man who, having tired of His material gifts, would necessarily turn to God in his exhaustion. God, being omniscient and prescient, knows that there is the possibility that even the wicked might not turn to Him, but He knows that eventually mortal man is prone to lethargy; his lassitude, then, would be the leverage He needed to toss man to His breast. In the context of the mechanical operation of a pulley, the kind of leverage and force applied makes the difference for the weight being lifted. Applied to man in this poem, we can say that the withholding of Rest by God is the leverage that will hoist or draw mankind towards God when other means would make that task difficult. However, in the first line of the last stanza, Herbert puns on the word "rest" suggesting that perhaps God will, after all, let man "keep the rest," but such a reading would seem to diminish the force behind the poem's conceit.

The importance of rest -and, by association, sleep- is an idea that was certainly uppermost in the minds of Renaissance writers. Many of Shakespeare's plays include references to sleep or the lack of it as a punishment for sins committed. In Macbeth, for example, the central protagonist is said to "lack the season of all natures, sleep" and both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are tormented by the lack of sleep. Even Othello is most disconcerted by the fact that he is unable to sleep peacefully once Iago has poisoned him with the possibility of his wife's infidelity with Cassio.

Herbert's Pulley, then, does not present a new concept. In fact, the ideas in the poem are quite commonplace for seventeenth century religious verse. What is distinctly metaphysical about the poem is that a religious notion is conveyed through a secular, scientific image that requires the reader's acquaintance with, and understanding of, some basic laws of physics.

In the style of the “wit” of metaphysical poetry—the ability to see striking, original analogies and to use fresh metaphors—Herbert writes of man’s relationship to God by comparing the communication of God to man and man to God to the movements of a pulley. In the language of seventeenth century poetry, Herbert uses a “conceit,” an unexpected image from another realm of learning to illuminate a truth of theology—the simple machine of a pulley from the science of physics as a concept to understand the mystery of love between God and man. The first stanza describes God’s gifts from above descending to man below:

When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let us (said he) pour on him all we can:
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

Beginning with the story of Creation in Genesis, Herbert portrays God as the bountiful Lord whose goodness overflows with the fullness David praises in Psalm 23: “My cup runneth over.” God’s blessings know no limits, for He chooses to “pour on him all we can” and offer man “the world’s riches.” God’s riches abound with a wealth of plentiful gifts that Herbert describes as the best prizes of human happiness:

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all his treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.

God in the liberality of his munificence bestows this kingly wealth upon his creature, sparing none of his treasure. God endows man with an abundant life enriched with the gratification of the senses, the pleasures of the mind, the wonder of beauty, and the compliments of praise. God empties and pours with openhanded profusion but withholds one last blessing that remains in the cup: peace (“Rest in the bottom lay”). God’s love and wisdom complement each other. To grant man rest in addition to other blessings separates God and man and eliminates the communion between the Creator and his creature.

In his infinite wisdom Go does not part with this last gift—his “jewel”—to prevent man’s self-sufficiency and independence from God, as if man’s ultimate and final happiness consisted of worldly satisfactions without any thought of Heaven, eternal happiness, the Beatific Vision, or the “peace that passes all understanding.” God in his great wisdom gives man temporal pleasure, joy, and happiness but not perfect “rest”—the peace that Christ promises when He says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27):

For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts instead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.

From the heights of Heaven God—as if by means of a pulley—sends down to man on earth this multitude of gifts. The heavy weight and number of blessings from heaven above move the pulley downward for man’s benefit and enjoyment, yet God does not put so much weight on his end that the pulley drops all the gifts to touch the earth. He designs the pulley to move downward and bestow many gifts to his creatures yet remain partially suspended. God stops at letting the pulley rest on earth lest man forget the donor of the gifts, fail to express gratitude, or lose his relationship with God. Without the pulley moving always both downward and upward, God’s Providence does not reach man and man’s praise never rises to God: “both should losers be.” Some of the weight—rest, the “jewel”—remains at the top end of the pulley to pull the rope up when man falls victim to the temptation to “rest in Nature, not the God of Nature”—to make the City of Man the City of God or to think man does not need God. God does not want man to live as if God does not exist, and a Heavenly Father does not wish to sever his bond with his children. If man fails to render thanks to God as the author of all gifts and blessings or forgets the purpose of the human pilgrimage and the four last things, then God has another way to lead man to him:

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.

In the course of human life the original gifts bestowed from the cup of blessings—strength, pleasure, beauty, honor, pleasure—do not provide lasting happiness but “repining restlessness.” Health declines and strength diminishes. Pleasures fade, and the senses are dulled or jaded. Beauty blooms and then declines. Honor gives momentary glory but then disappears into oblivion. As time progresses and ageing follows, these original pleasures do not provide the deep satisfaction or spiritual joy that offers the rest or peace the heart seeks. Fading and declining, they lose their weight, and the bottom end of the pulley becomes lighter and lighter. As these pleasures lose their capacity to fill man with the happiness he seeks, he grows “weary,” restless, and empty. The weight that remained in the top part of the pulley—now heavier than the lower part—pulls upward, and God leads man back to him by the second method—the way of “weariness” that God has designed when gratitude fails to render to God the things that are God’s.

The poem illuminates the journey of St. Augustine’s soul in the Confessions. Blessed with a loving mother, St. Monica, who never ceased praying for her son’s conversion, and with a generous father, Patricius, who afforded his son the best classical education of the day, Augustine—before his conversion—enjoyed all the blessings enumerated in Herbert’s poem: health, friendship, pleasure, honor, and wisdom. He achieved the prestige of a professor of rhetoric, pursued a love of knowledge, and felt inspired by “an extraordinary and burning love of wisdom.” He reveled in the entertainments of his pagan culture, enjoyed gladiatorial spectacles, “was carried away by plays on the stage,” cultivated the ideals of friendship, and cohabited “with a woman who was not bound to me by marriage.” Despite honor, wisdom, and pleasure Augustine confesses, “I lived a life in which I was seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving, the prey of various desires.” He writes, “Mad and foolish I was at that time. I raged and sighed and wept and worried, I could not rest, I could not think intelligently.” Although God’s many gifts and life’s pleasures never lifted Augustine’s heart to gratitude, his restlessness ultimately led him to the Catholic faith where his restless found rest: “Stand in Him, and you shall stand fast; rest in Him, and you shall find peace.” Herbert’s concluding line, “If goodness lead him not, yet weariness/ May toss him to my breast” gives special meaning to Augustine’s most famous words: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

 GEORGE HERBERT - THE PULLEY ,

1.       How many stanzas it has?  Four stanzas

2.       Who gave Pandora Box?   Zeus.

3.       How many lines each stanza contains?  Five lines.

4.       In which does god keep gifts? Glass.

5.       What would happen if god gave rest to man? Man would rest in nature and not the god of nature.

6.       Which will make man towards god? Weariness.

7.       What is the first gift that God gives a man? Strength

8.       Name the gifts that God gives man.   Strength, beauty, wisdom, pleasure.

9.       What is the gift that God does not give man? Rest or peace of mind.

10.   Why does God withhold rest from man? To make man seek peace by communing with God, God denied him peace.

11.   What is a pulley? It is a mechanical device. It raises heavy objects to a higher level.

12.   What is compared to pulley? God who lifts care-worn people to higher spiritual planes is regarded as a pulley.

13.   What is the another name of ‘Pulley’? The gifts of god.

14.   What is the collection of work of Herbert?  ‘The Temple’.

15.   What does the word Pulley refer?  Pain, Bliss and struggle.

16.   What are the two things add richness to metaphysical conceit?   The fusion of the classical  and the  Christian.

17.   What is the central idea of the poem?  God made man, he poured all his blessings on him. However, as in Pandora’s box one element remained.

18.   Where is God kept the Rest? At the Bottome.

19.   Why is God not bestowed Rest on man? If he were to bestow on man as well then Man would adore God’s gifts instead of God Himself.

20.   What poetic device does Herbert use in the first stanza? Pun.

21.   Whose age people writings are reflected in this poem?  Renaissance

22.   How is Rest compared? Jewel

23.   What meter is used in this poem? Iambic Pentameter.

24.   Who said “Let man fret and worry himself”?  God

25.   What is the first line of the poem? “When God at first made man”.

THE AFFLICTION

1.      Which is Herbert’s autobiographical poem?  The Affliction

2.      What is the poem about? It is account of his spiritual life up to the present.

3.      Why the poem is entitled as ‘Affliction’? His early life was joyful and believing in God but subsequently he has been overshadowed by suffering.

4.      What did he complain about? His troubles and sufferings.

5.      What does Affliction refer? Tuberculosis due to which Herbert died.

6.      What does Herbert use in the last lines of the poem? Forgetfulness.