The Full Text of “Love (III)”
1Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
2 Guilty of dust and sin.
3But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
4 From my first entrance in,
5Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
6 If I lacked anything.
7A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
8 Love said, You shall be he.
9I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
10 I cannot look on thee.
11Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
12 Who made the eyes but I?
13Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
14 Go where it doth deserve.
15And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
16 My dear, then I will serve.
17You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
18 So I did sit and eat.
The Full Text of “Love (III)”
1Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
2 Guilty of dust and sin.
3But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
4 From my first entrance in,
5Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
6 If I lacked anything.
7A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
8 Love said, You shall be he.
9I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
10 I cannot look on thee.
11Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
12 Who made the eyes but I?
13Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
14 Go where it doth deserve.
15And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
16 My dear, then I will serve.
17You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
18 So I did sit and eat.
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“Love (III)” Introduction
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As its title suggests, "Love (III)" is the third and final of a sequence of poems on love—more particularly, God's love—by Welsh poet George Herbert (1593-1633). These poems appeared in Herbert's great posthumous collection The Temple (1633), an influential book of Christian poetry in which Herbert explores the trials and blisses of belief. This poem is the last that appears in the collection. Through its image of God as an affectionate host inviting a shamefaced soul to the dinner table, "Love (III)" sums up one of the simplest (and yet most challenging) principles of Christianity: you don't have to have a spotless soul, the poem insists, for God to love and forgive you.
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“Love (III)” Summary
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Love welcomed me, but my soul shrank away; I felt guilty about my failings and sins. But watchful Love, noticing that I was drawing back from the moment I entered, came nearer to me and asked if I needed anything.
I told Love that all I needed was a guest who deserved to be here. Love replied, "That's you." I said: "Unkind, ungrateful me? Oh, my dear, I can't possibly look you in the face." Love held my hand, smiled, and replied: "Who do you think made your eyes, but me?"
"Yes, God," I said, "but I've spoiled them. You should send me away, it's all I deserve." "But don't you know," asked Love, "who paid for your sins already? Because of that atonement, dear one, I will care for you. You must sit down at the table and feast with me." So I sat down and ate.
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“Love (III)” Themes
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God's Love and Forgiveness
In "Love (III)," a remorseful soul feels too ashamed of all his sins to enter God's house. The welcoming God, however, points out that whatever failings weigh on the soul's conscience, they've all been paid for already: Christ "bore the blame" for all humanity's crimes, and now everyone is welcome to feast at God's table. This deceptively simple poem, the last in The Temple (George Herbert's important collection of Christian verse), explores how astonishingly loving and forgiving God is: difficult though it is for humanity to understand, the speaker suggests, God really does forgive people for the ugliest of sins.
When the poem begins, the time has come for the poem's speaker, a remorseful "soul" to enter God's house—a house which might suggest either a church or heaven itself, though in this poem it takes on the humble shape of a tavern where a feast is being served. Feeling "guilty of dust and sin," ashamed of his lowliness and his failings, the speaker hangs back, certain there’s no way that he could be "worthy" of a place at God's table. Being a mortal human being with a conscience, these images suggest, means being all too painfully aware of how small, imperfect, and sinful you are.
None of that matters to a loving God, however—whom the speaker even names "Love" here. God ushers the speaker to the table like a friendly innkeeper, reminding him of two important points: God made the speaker and wants him around, and Christ "bore the blame" already for whatever sins the speaker is worried about, atoning for humanity's crimes through the Crucifixion. In other words, nothing the speaker has done is unforgivable or unforgiven, and God loves the speaker as he is. The speaker has no excuse, then, not to come on in and share God’s dinner (which might represent both taking communion on earth and directly communing with God in heaven).
The very simplicity of this story communicates what the speaker finds so awe-inspiring (and difficult!) about Christian faith: wrapping your head around the abundance of God's love means believing in a forgiveness that sounds too easy to be true. Being forgiven for your sins, in this speaker's view, really is as straightforward as accepting that God not only can forgive you but longs to forgive you—an idea is so unlike the way people feel about themselves and each other that it takes a leap of faith to believe it. Luckily, the speaker suggests, God is there to help with that leap, too.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Love (III)”
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Lines 1-6
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."Love (III)," as its title suggests, is the third poem on love in George Herbert's collection of Christian verse, The Temple. It's also the last poem in that book and can be taken, in some sense, as Herbert's final word on the matter. The love in question here isn't romantic love, but divine love: God's love for humanity, and for one anxious soul in particular.
That poor soul, the speaker himself, first appears standing at God's front door. But he's simply too ashamed to come in. Though God, in the form of Love personified, cheerily welcomes him, he shrinks away, feeling "guilty of dust and sin": in other words, on God's threshold, he's painfully aware of his own grimy mortal failings. Being this close to Love itself seems to have made him self-conscious.
God, "quick-eyed," notices the speaker’s hesitation, and greets him, "sweetly" asking "if I lacked anything." To a modern reader, this question just sounds makes God sound friendly, like a good host. To Herbert, these words would also suggest something more specific: "What do you lack?" is what a 17th-century bartender would ask a customer, something in the vein of "What can I get you?" In these lines, God appears as a kindly innkeeper, practically wiping their hands on their apron as they check on their nervous guest.
Right from the start, then, the poem layers gentle humor on top of awe (a classic Herbert move). The speaker, encountering God face to face, finds himself horribly aware of the stains on his own soul. But this momentous encounter happens in the earthliest of contexts.
As is often the case in Herbert, the poem's shape reflects its emotion:
- The poem's meter alternates between long lines of iambic pentameter (that is, lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm: "Love bade | me wel- | come: yet | my soul | drew back") and short lines of iambic trimeter (just three iambs: "Who made | the eyes | but I?").
- The lines thus move like the relationship the poem describes: God reaches out to welcome the speaker, the speaker shrinks away in shame.
- The rhyme scheme works similarly: in each sestet (or six-line stanza), a dithery alternating ABAB pattern resolves in a firm CC couplet, just as God replies to the speaker's hesitance with a firm welcome.
The poem's music makes meaning, too. Listen to the echoing sounds in the first lines:
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.The alliterative and assonant chime between "bade" (pronounced bad) and "back" again meets God's welcome with the speaker's reluctance. And the sibilant /s/ running through "soul," "dust," and "sin" links the speaker's soul with all that he feels stains it.
Those stains don't matter to the innkeeper Love, though. This will be a poem about a God whose love and forgiveness are so far and beyond human capacities that they boggle the mind of even the most fervent believer.
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Lines 7-12
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? -
Lines 13-16
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. -
Lines 17-18
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat.
So I did sit and eat.
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“Love (III)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Conceit
"Love (III)" is built around a central conceit, an extended metaphor: the image of God as an innkeeper, the host of a tavern that might equally be a church or heaven itself.
As the poem begins, the speaker enters a hall where God is serving a feast, but lingers by the door, ashamed of the "dust and sin" that stain his soul. Like a good host, "quick-eyed" God spots this anxious guest and checks in, using the language a 17th-century bartender would: asking what a customer "lacked" was that era's way of saying "What do you want?"
The gently funny image of God as a publican, wiping their hands on their apron, brings a matter of cosmic weight down to earth, insisting that God cares about every ordinary, humble life, no matter how imperfect.
The ethereal and the earthly mingle again when God tells the speaker that he "must sit down" and "taste my meat." (Note that "meat" just meant "food" in Herbert's era.) There are layers of metaphorical meaning here: the tavern meal, in this image, suggests both the ritual of communion and the "feast" of God's presence, the direct encounter with divine love that Christianity promises will come in heaven.
The poem's conceit, then, sticks a pin through three elements of human life as Herbert saw it: the everyday world of eating and drinking, the sacred world of religious ritual, and the transcendence of heaven. A bounteous, loving, forgiving, and gentle God, the poem suggests, is present in all of these places at once.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Rhetorical Question
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Allusion
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Alliteration
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"Love (III)" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Bade me welcome
- Slack
- Marred
- Doth
- Bore
- Meat
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Welcomed me.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Love (III)”
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Form
This deceptively simple poem uses a form of Herbert's own design. Its three sestets (six-line stanzas) alternate between longer and shorter lines, a rhythm that mirrors the action of the poem: Love reaches out to invite the speaker in, and the speaker shrinks away, ashamed of himself. When, in the final stanza, the speaker finally accepts Love's invitation and sits down, a last short line—"So I did sit and eat"—reflects just how astonishingly simple forgiveness was all along.
Herbert, like a lot of his fellow 17th-century Metaphysical poets, often used such inventive, flexible, emotional forms, shaping his poems to his themes rather than shaping a theme to a traditional form (like the sonnet, though he wrote some of those, too). Famously, he even experimented with concrete poetry, writing devotional poems in the shape of wings and altars.
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Meter
"Love (III)" alternates between lines of iambic pentameter and iambic trimeter. That means that its long lines use five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm, like this:
Love bade | me wel- | come: yet | my soul | drew back,
The short lines, meanwhile, use only three iambs, like this:
Who made | the eyes | but I?
The alternation between long, longing, reaching lines and short, withdrawn lines mirrors the speaker's inner dilemma as he shrinks from God's door, afraid he's too sinful to come in.
As is often the case in iambic verse, some of the lines here use little metrical variations for drama. Listen to the speaker's voice in line 9 as he doubts that a sinner like him could be worthy of God's company:
I the | unkind, | ungrate- | ful? Ah | my dear,
The first foot here is a trochee, the opposite of an iamb, with a DUM-da rhythm. That puts a lot of incredulous stress on the word "I": You couldn't possibly want awful old me around?
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Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme of "Love (III)" runs like this:
ABABCC
The movement from the alternating ABAB sections to the closing CC couplets creates a rhythm of setup and payoff, reflecting the speaker's grapple with his faith. At first, the speaker doubts that God could possibly want a sinner like him around. But God always has a loving, simple, inarguable reply to those doubts. The rhyme scheme, similarly, moves time and again from anxious wavering to firm resolution.
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“Love (III)” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is a timid, shamefaced soul standing at God's door and worrying whether he's wanted inside. Struck with a bad conscience, he knows he's "guilty of dust and sin"—that is, that he's a flawed human being made of mortal dirt, all too aware of his many crimes.
Readers might see Herbert grappling with his personal faith here. This poem is the final in Herbert's famous and influential collection, The Temple, in which the poet (an Anglican clergyman) often writes autobiographically of his religious fervor, doubt, and joy. The fears and hopes here are certainly in some way Herbert's own.
However, this poem also distills one of the basic problems of Christian faith: the difficulty of believing that God's powers of love and forgiveness are bottomless, and thus simply different than humanity's. In that, the speaker is a Christian everyman.
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“Love (III)” Setting
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The setting here is both humble and exalted. The speaker depicts his encounter with God as a meeting with a friendly innkeeper, who, spotting the speaker dithering at the door, cheerily asks him if he "lack[s] anything." These are the words with which a 17th-century bartender would ask your order, along the lines of "What'll you have?", and they set up a gently funny backdrop for a deeply felt poem.
For the inn here is a metaphor either for a church where the speaker can receive communion, or—even more dramatically—for heaven itself, the place where, as the speaker believes, souls will one day "feast" in (and on) the presence of God. The speaker's juxtaposition of a friendly dinner table with the very halls of heaven quietly makes the point that ordinary life (and ordinary mortals) are the works of God, too.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Love (III)”
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Literary Context
A passionate, poetic soul, George Herbert (1593-1633) lived a humble life as a country priest, serving a small English parish that bore the exuberant name of Fuggleston-cum-Bemerton. Herbert, born a nobleman and raised a scholar, often struggled with the limitations his calling imposed on his life; he could easily have made a splash in a royal court, but he felt inexorably drawn to the priesthood.
While he never found public poetic success during his short lifetime, Herbert is now remembered as one of the foremost of the "Metaphysical Poets." This group of 17th-century writers, which included poets like John Donne and Andrew Marvell, shared a combination of brilliant intellect, passionate feeling, and religious fervor. Herbert was not the only one of these poets to work as a clergyman or to explore his relationship with God in poems that sometimes sound more like love songs than hymns.
The Temple (1633), the book in which "Love (III)" is the final poem, was Herbert's only poetry collection, and it might never have seen the light of day. Dying at the age of only 39, Herbert left the book's manuscript to his friend Nicholas Farrar, telling him to publish it if he felt it would do some "dejected poor soul" some good. Farrar, suspecting it would, brought to press what would become one of the world's best-known and best-loved books of poetry. The Temple went on to influence poets from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to T.S. Eliot to Wendy Cope.
Historical Context
George Herbert lived and wrote during an unsettled period of British history. During Herbert's childhood, Britain was enjoying a golden age. The powerful Elizabeth I was on the throne, and Britain was both a formidable military power and a literary treasure house, boasting writers like Shakespeare, Spenser, and Marlowe. But the great "Virgin Queen" died without children in 1603, and her successor, James VI and I of Scotland and England, was not quite such a unifying figure. Many of his people were either skeptical of him or downright hostile to his rule. (The infamous Guy Fawkes, who was executed for trying to blow up James's Parliament, is one vivid example.)
The anti-monarchist plots James grappled with would eventually feed into an unprecedented uprising. By the time that George Herbert died in 1633, James's son Charles I was on the throne—but he wouldn't stay there for long. In 1649, a rebellion led by Oliver Cromwell would depose Charles and publicly behead him, a world-shaking event that upended old certainties about monarchy, hierarchy, and even God's will.
Though Herbert didn't live to see Charles's fall, he was still one of a generation of writers grappling with dramatic change and loss, reaching out to God for strength. The self-conscious anxiety and tender reassurance of "Love (III)" suggests a poet who knows that the inner life is just as tempestuous and meaningful as the outer.
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More “Love (III)” Resources
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External Resources
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Herbert's life and work.
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The Temple — Learn about The Temple, the important posthumous collection in which this poem is the final word.
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Herbert's Legacy — Read contemporary poet Wendy Cope's appreciation of Herbert.
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to the notable monk Thomas Merton reading the poem aloud.
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The George Herbert Society — Learn much more about Herbert (and see images of his church) via the Herbert Society.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by George Herbert
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