To continue my "Secret Lives of the Poets" series, I'd like to turn to the 17th-century British poet George Herbert (portrait above sketched after swim-practice, 11th grade).
Herbert, born in 1593, will be remembered today as undoubtedly one of the most fiercely religious of the so-called "Metaphysical Poets." After the death of his wife, he decided to give up on all earthly ambition and so became Rector of Bemerton, in Wiltshire. He payed out of pocket to rebuild the ramshackle church. There he had time to work on the poems which, after his death, would make him famous.
As a poet, Herbert is best known for (1) expressing in meticulously-crafted verse his tortured struggle to know God and (2) occasionally making his poems into funny little shapes, like angel wings or kittens.
In my recent perusal of the shelves at my local library, a volume of Herbert's caught my eye: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations.
If you're half as excited as I was upon first reading this title, I feel it is my duty to warn you: there's not nearly as much ejaculating in these poems as I would have expected.
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