George Herbert

The Collar

struck the board

Physical violence as opening gesture—Herbert doesn't begin with complaint but action. This sets the tone: rebellion is embodied, not merely thought.

I struck the board, and cry'd, No more;
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,

free as the rode

Herbert means 'road' but the spelling suggests 'rode' (past tense of ride). The ambiguity works: freedom as both path and action already taken.

Loose as the winde, as large as store.

in suit

Legal/courtly term meaning 'in service' or 'petitioning.' The speaker resents the posture of supplication itself, not just its conditions.

Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit?

cordiall fruit

'Cordiall' means both 'cordial' (warm, comforting) and relates to the heart. The speaker measures loss in emotional nourishment, not material goods.

Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did drie it: there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me?
Have I no bayes to crown it?
No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?
All wasted?
Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,

rope of sands

A restraint made of nothing—self-imposed bondage. The speaker recognizes his cage is constructed from 'pettie thoughts,' not external force.

Thy rope of sands,
Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away; take heed,
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there: tie up thy fears.

deaths head

Memento mori object (skull). The speaker tells his heart to 'call in' the reminder of mortality—to use death-awareness as a tool against fear, not surrender to it.

He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.

rav'd and grew more fierce

The rhetoric escalates into fury, but notice the shift: the speaker is describing his own escalation in third person ('Me thoughts I heard'). Distance is growing.

But as I rav'd and grew more fierce and wilde
At every word,
Me thoughts I heard one calling, Childe:

Childe: / My Lord

Single-word response that reverses everything. 'Childe' recalls medieval obedience; 'My Lord' is submission to divine authority, not human masters. The rebellion collapses instantly.

Childe: / My Lord

Single-word response that reverses everything. 'Childe' recalls medieval obedience; 'My Lord' is submission to divine authority, not human masters. The rebellion collapses instantly.

And I reply'd, My Lord.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Structure of Rebellion and Collapse

The Collar dramatizes a single moment of spiritual crisis in real time. The speaker begins in revolt—striking furniture, declaring independence—but the poem's genius is that it's not a debate between two positions. It's the *same voice* arguing itself into a corner, growing louder and more desperate with each stanza until the logic of rebellion becomes indistinguishable from madness.

Notice how the speaker's arguments actually undermine themselves. He complains of being 'in suit' (in service), then immediately argues that 'He that forbears / To suit and serve his need, / Deserves his load'—which is exactly the submission he's rebelling against. The voice becomes trapped in its own rhetoric. By the time the divine voice interrupts with 'Childe,' the speaker is already exhausted, already defeated by his own words. The one-word reply 'My Lord' isn't imposed from outside; it's the only logical exit from the trap the speaker has constructed.

Herbert's Biographical Context: Service and Constraint

CONTEXT Herbert was ordained as a priest in 1630 and spent his final years as rector of Bemerton, a rural parish. He had earlier turned down a promising court career. The Collar is not abstract theology—it's Herbert processing the actual cost of his choice to serve.

The poem's language of constraint ('cage,' 'rope,' 'suit') reflects real social structures of Herbert's era. A clergyman's life was one of formal obligation, limited autonomy, and deferred reward. But the poem's insight is psychological: the speaker's cage is partly self-made. His 'pettie thoughts' have constructed the very bonds he resents. This makes the ending not a defeat but a recognition—that rebellion against God is also rebellion against the only structure that makes sense of his suffering. The submission to 'My Lord' is also a return to clarity.