George Herbert’s ‘The Pulley’

The gifts of rest and restlessness

Pulley on a large sailing ship. (Heidi Pinkall/Shutterstock)

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in you,” wrote St. Augustine. Over 1,000 years later, George Herbert wrote a poem giving us the backstory as to why this is so.

George Herbert lived from 1593 to 1633 and was one of the metaphysical poets who wrote in 17th-century England. I defer to the wisdom of T.S. Eliot, who said that metaphysical poetry is extremely difficult to define but generally is characterized by the use of conceit, which is an extended metaphor, and reflections on the invisible reality.

Both of these characteristics are exemplified in Herbert’s poem “The Pulley,” which presents us with the scene of the creation of man. Naturally, “The Pulley” is not a historical account of creation, but it is a means of understanding why work was always built into the divine plan for mankind, even before our relationship with it was corrupted by the fall.

In his poem, Herbert reveals the path to true rest and shows how it is inseparable from restlessness in this life.

The Pulley 

As the title suggests, the poem revolves around the image of a pulley, which here refers to the means by which man is drawn back to his Creator. This image unfolds within a second metaphor: a glass of blessings that God pours upon man at his creation.

When God at first made man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, “Let us,” said he, “pour on him all we can. Let the world’s riches, which dispersèd lie, Contract into a span.”

So strength first made a way; Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay.

The start of the poem seems like the reversal of the tale of Pandora’s box as we are left with one blessing remaining in the glass. However, as we will see, this particular blessing could prove to be the only treasure it would be better not to pour out for the time being.

“For if I should,” said he, “Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He would adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature; So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest, But keep them with repining restlessness; Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast.”

The pun in the first line of the final stanza presents us with the paradox in the poem: By keeping rest back, God gives us the fullest type of rest possible. As expressed by St. Augustine, our hearts are restless until they rest in God. In the end, as long as we find it in God, we receive rest, after all.

The poet uses the image of the pulley to show how God pulls us to him. (Massimo Todaro/Shutterstock)

Here is where the image of the pulley is brought to completion. As man is dragged down by weariness, he is pulled (or “tossed”) upward to God. It is in an everyday mechanical device that Herbert gives us an image of the divine plan for us at creation and of the continuing action of grace in our lives.

True Rest

To find the sort of rest that Herbert describes, we have to put aside our modern, utilitarian notion of rest as an absence of work, a break that merely prepares us to return to more work. Instead, our rest (that is, our conscious rest) must be an activity rather than passivity. The only way we find rest in this world is by seeking our Creator, which requires a proper understanding of leisure as a time of silence and active contemplation.

As German philosopher Josef Pieper says, “Leisure … is a mental and spiritual attitude—it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, week-end, or a vacation.” He goes on to say: “Leisure is a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation.”

Herbert's poem describes a "glass of blessings," which God pours upon man at his creation. "Still Life With Turkey Pie," 1627, by Pieter Claesz. (Public Domain)

In Pieper’s understanding, the proper end of leisure is divine worship. We are taken out of the weariness of daily work into the “love of the invisible reality.” So, too, Herbert demonstrates that our restlessness must move us. In the poem, man is left not with a vacuous absence of rest but with an active restlessness, which propels us to our Creator.

We cannot be content without God, and so, whether from virtue or the weariness of the world, we must necessarily turn to him for our rest. Though it seems counterintuitive that we find rest from our activity in further activity, that we find rest is thanks only to restlessness. This paradox leads us to fullness rather than emptiness: Rest is no longer just a state of worklessness, but rather consists of adoration.

The fact that the glass of blessings was not quite emptied leads us to our greatest sense of fulfillment. We as finite creatures are pulled into union with our infinite Creator, such that we are the richer for having been weary.