In the TLS, Vikram Seth offers three of his poems, from a group of six, that were inspired by George Herbert. The poems were set as a song-cycle (”Shared Ground”) and performed at the Salisbury, Chelsea and Lichfield Festivals. In a note, Seth explains his attraction to Herbert:

When I was seventeen or so, I came to England (from India) to do my A-levels in physics and mathematics. In the event, I did only one A-level: in English. One of our set books was a collection of George Herbert’s verse. I felt a deep affinity for Herbert from the first time I read him – though I am not Christian and am, indeed, hardly religious.

When, more than three decades later, I heard that his house near Salisbury was on sale, I felt I had to visit it. I had no intention of buying it; I simply wanted to see the place where such poems as “Love” (“Love bade me welcome”) and “Virtue” (“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright”) had been written. I felt troubled, in fact, that in 1980 the Church had sold his rectory off. If they had to sell something to keep their finances in order, why not sell off a cathedral or two instead of the house of the greatest Anglican poet?

Seth bought the house in 2003. Herbert was “a clear writer and a tactful spirit,” Seth writes, and this has made it easier for him to inhabit the house, and perhaps that sensibility, and still be himself. Here is one of Seth’s Herbert poems, and it is titled “Host”:

I heard it was for sale and thought I’d go
To see the old house where
He lived three years, and died. How could I know
Its stones, its trees, its air,
The stream, the small church, the dark rain would say:
“You’ve come; you’ve seen; now stay.”

“A guest?” I asked. “Yes, as you are on earth.”
“The means?” “. . . will come, don’t fear.”
“What of the risk?” “Our lives are that from birth.”
“His ghost?” “His soul is here.”
“He’ll change my style.” “Well, but you could do worse
Than rent his rooms of verse.”

Joy came, and grief; love came, and loss; three years –
Tiles down; moles up; drought; flood.
Though far in time and faith, I share his tears,
His hearth, his ground, his mud;
Yet my host stands just out of mind and sight,
That I may sit and write.

vikram-seth-george-herbert-tls

Five or six years ago, when I had gone to meet him at the Granta office in London, Ian Jack had told me the story of his sickness and his stay at the Holy Kurji Family Hospital. As it happens, I passed by the hospital in a boat just a few days ago but, reading this piece, discovering Ian’s original reason for going to Patna, I suddenly felt a strong desire to return. (”I was going to Patna to try to find the lawyer who had represented (and eventually freed) a man who had spent 30 years in jails and lunatic asylums for the crime of being found without a ticket on the Assam Mail.”) Do read the story. I liked it especially because of Ian’s characteristic clarity, a quality which is close to honesty and gives his writing a rare kind of warmth.

I woke up in the dark. I sometimes think about this scene: the utter blackness and the sounds of men—I think they were always men—moaning and whimpering around me. One or two, I later realised, were dying. I was in the windowless intensive care ward. Worse than that, I was in the windowless intensive care ward during a powercut, as it hit the Kurji Holy Family Hospital just as it did the rest of Patna. Sometimes a nurse would pick up a telephone, perhaps to summon help or ask advice, and then, finding it dead, would give a small shout and bang it down again. Perhaps two days went by like this, of my knowing and then not knowing where I was, until the moment came when I saw a woman standing by my bed and realised after a minute or two that she was my wife, who had flown from London. A newspaper account would have read: “She flew three thousand miles to be at his bedside.” I was too dazed to weep.

Mr Banerjee said, “You are lucky. You have been very ill, you know. Your appendix had burst. I was worried about peritonitis. You were vomiting even during the operation itself.”

Slowly, I recovered. I got a room with a view of the Ganges and watched country boats with their rough brown sails move up and down the river. On the far bank, men towed them against the current with a rope. I watched this living, toiling world with a new respect and affection.

ian-jack-patna-bihar