Today’s Poem: Love (III)

George Herbert and the vast scope of divine intimacy

Foot-Washing (detail), Bernhard Strigel, c. 1520 (Wikimedia Commons)

In a 1946 Sewanee Review essay, “What Is Minor Poetry,” T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) takes up the “very interesting” case of George Herbert (1593–1633). The general theme of Eliot’s essay is that of the anthologized poet, the poet whose work people chiefly know in the context of a selected an…