God's Anger Without Affection.

God when He's angry here with anyone,
His wrath is free from perturbation;
And when we think His looks are sour and grim,
The alteration is in us, not Him.

Robert Herrick

Robert Herrick was a 17th-century English lyric poet and cleric. He is known for his book of poems, "Hesperides," which includes the carpe diem poem "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time." His works are noted for their clarity, simplicity, and musical quality. Herrick was also a vicar of Dean Prior in Devon, despite being ejected during the English Civil War and later reinstated.

Robert Herrick

To The Sour Reader.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Another To Bring In The Witch.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

Few Fortunate.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

To Sappho.

Robert Herrick, Simple Poetry

English

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God's Anger.

God can't be wrathful: but we may conclude
Wrathful He may be by similitude:
God's wrathful said to be, when He doth do
That without wrath which wrath doth force us to.

Robert Herrick

Affliction.

God ne'er afflicts us more than our desert,
Though He may seem to overact His part:
Sometimes He strikes us more than flesh can bear;
But yet still less than grace can suffer here.

Robert Herrick

To His Angry God.

Through all the night
Thou dost me fright,
And hold'st mine eyes from sleeping;
And day by day,
My cup can say
My wine is mix'd with weeping.

Thou dost my bread
With ashes knead
Each evening and each morrow;
Mine eye and ear
Do see and hear
The coming in of sorrow.

Thy scourge of steel,
Ah me! I feel
Upon me beating ever:
While my sick heart
With dismal smart
Is disacquainted never.

Long, long, I'm sure,
This can't endure,
But in short time 'twill please Thee,
My gentle God,
To burn the rod,
Or strike so as to ease me.

Robert Herrick

Another To God.

Though Thou be'st all that active love
Which heats those ravished souls above;
And though all joys spring from the glance
Of Thy most winning countenance;
Yet sour and grim Thou'dst seem to me
If through my Christ I saw not Thee.

Robert Herrick

God's Mirth: Man's Mourning.

Where God is merry, there write down thy fears:
What He with laughter speaks, hear thou with tears.

Robert Herrick

To God.

God is all sufferance here; here He doth show
No arrow nockt, only a stringless bow:
His arrows fly, and all His stones are hurl'd
Against the wicked in another world.

Robert Herrick