"Church Monuments" by George Herbert

Subjects discussed in this episode include: 
 

-Aspects of devotional and Metaphysical poetry

-Memento Mori and its more fun twin, Carpe Diem 

-Tell the truth, but tell it in true rhymes. 

-The passing of time really blows. 

-Death may be the mother of beauty, but sin is the mother of death. 

-You may be star dust, but you're still dust. 

-A surprisingly harmless debate about pronouns. 

-There are no blasphemous hoodlums in this poem, unfortunately. 

-What's the difference between you and a time-keeping device? There isn't one. 

-Glass is just fancy sand. 

-Facing your mortality: not just a 17th century Christian activity. 

Text of the poem: 

Church Monuments 

While that my soul repairs to her devotion,

Here I entomb my flesh, that it betimes

May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;

To which the blast of death's incessant motion,

Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,

Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn

To spell his elements, and find his birth

Written in dusty heraldry and lines;

Which dissolution sure doth best discern,

Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth.

These laugh at jet, and marble put for signs,

To sever the good fellowship of dust,

And spoil the meeting. What shall point out them,

When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat

To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust?

Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem

And true descent: that when thou shalt grow fat,

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know,

That flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust

That measures all our time; which also shall

Be crumbled into dust. Mark, here below,

How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,

That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.

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Art by David Anthony Klug