The best-known religious poem in the English language, The Temple. Actually a sequence of poems, The Temple is shaped by the order of church ritual and liturgy. At the heart of The Temple stands 'The Church,' poems that are patterned on the Church's liturgical calendar and that discuss theological ideas such as death, judgment, and heaven. Herbert's poetry is at once personal and confessional. His poems about the Eucharist and holy baptism are not only the poet's expressions of the struggles of his own flesh to be reconciled to God. This mildly modernized edition makes the spiritual insight and quiet passion of this great poet available to today's reader.
