Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, December 23rd, 2004. Today's poem comes from George Herbert. And though you may not find it included in any anthologies of Christmas poetry, I'm going to make a case for it being a Christmas poem all the same. It's a well-known poem, maybe one of Herbert's most

well-known. It's Love Number Three from his poetry collection, The Temple, published in 1633. I'll read it

once, offer a few comments, and then read it one more time. Love three.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entrance in, drew nearer to me,

sweetly questioning if I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here, love said, you shall be he.

I, the unkind, ungrateful.

Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes, but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says says love and taste my meat so I did sit and eat in Herbert's collection of poetry the temple this poem comes at the very end of the main

central section the church in the entirety of collection, it is the last poem but one.

And it follows a sequence of poems that seem to be arranged in a kind of chronological or logical order.

Death, doomsday, judgment, heaven, and then love number three, which suggests if it doesn't

explicitly demonstrate that this is a kind of culminating reflection upon the life of the soul.

There is the ordeal of death and then the fearful anxiety of the day of doom and

judgment and then the relief, the surprise even, the glorious delight of heaven. And then comes this

poem that seems to, in a small vignette, sum up all of that drama as it plays out in the life

of each particular person, or at least in a particular person, maybe the speaker or Herbert

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