Love Bade Me Welcome
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.
