Biblical Narratives and Herbert's Dialogue Poems by John Olson Conversation between God and his servants seems to have been an important part of George Herbert's view of the religious life, and much of his poetry reflects this fundamental belief. Many poems in his work The Temple arise from this commitment to dialogue.1 After noting this tendency, Helen Vendler suggests that Herbert's love of social contact and interaction with God influenced all of his poetry: Social exchange . . . is as congenial to him as life itself, and the tactical advances and retreats of [his] poems ... are based on the infinite variety that social dialectic and response take. . . 2 More than any of his other lyrics, his dialogue poems exemplify the "tactical advances and retreats," the "social dialectic," and the give-and-take that produce and sustain faith in God. In these dialogues, speaker and God confront one another, and in an often dramatic yet personal way deal with their differences and reestablish relationships. In an article on speakers and hearers in Herbert's poetry, Marion Meilaender suggests in passing that the poet's dialogue poems recall historical incidents from the Bible, and the writer offers six passages which are particularly germane.3 Chana Bloch has also noted that biblical dialogues may have influenced Herbert: The biblical precedents have guided Herbert, too, in imagining the dialogue of God and man. Herbert manages the colloquial tone of this dialogue ["Love" (III)] so persuasively because he has perfectly mastered the way man and God converse in the pages of the Bible.4 18John Olson Like Meilaender, Bloch does not detail which biblical dialogues may have affected which poems, nor does she suggest how they affected them.5 But as we isolate specific narratives from the historical books in both the Old and New Testament, we discover many personal and dramatic elements of dialogue within these biblical narratives, elements that are strikingly similar to those found in "The Collar" and "Love" (III).6 The first of these poems, "The Collar" is one of Herbert's most satisfying dialogues, but also one of his boldest experiments. Tonally, it is unlike anything Herbert offers anywhere else. In no other poem does Herbert present us with a protagonist full of such anger and hostility towards God and his designs: I struck the board, and cry'd, No more. I will abroad. What? shall I ever sigh and pine? (II. 1-3)7 The poem begins in medias res; the narrator has been provoked enough to act violently, and such action is immediately followed by angry words, accusations, and rhetorical questions. The anger is reinforced by the narrator's fierce action of striking the board and his insistent command — "No more." Here also begin the annoying questions addressed to himself but also to God: "What? shall I ever sigh and pine?"; "shall I be still in suit?"; "Is the yeare onely lost to me? / Have I no bayes to crown it? / No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?" (II. 3, 6, 13, 14-16). These questions are part inquiry and part indictment, for they fundamentally attack God's fairness and designs. At the outset, the poem seems to be a monologue and not a dialogue, but Herbert includes several elements to assure us that this is more than a simple tirade. In creating the illusion of conversation, Herbert, like Donne, often chooses the colloquial expression or word, such as "struck," "wink," "tie up," and "take heed." In addition, the narrator uses commands and a threat to suggest conversation: "leave thy cold dispute"; "forsake thy cage"; "call in thy deaths head there"; "tie up thy fears"; "forsake thy cage" — and the double command "Away; take heed." Besides the colloquial expressions and commands, he adds the twice-stated threat, "I will abroad" (II. 2, 28). HERBERT'S DIALOGUES19 Though all these expressions are directed first to himself (the will and the heart are both prepared to abandon God),6 they are also spoken so as to be overheard by God.9 This dramatic situation of one of God's servants dissatisfied to the point of rebellion against the God he serves is familiar in scripture: Adam and Eve...