1593–1633 · English poet, orator and Anglican priest
George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was an English poet, orator and priest of the Church of England, and the quietest of the metaphysical poets. Shortly before he died he sent the manuscript of his English poems to his friend Nicholas Ferrar, who published them in 1633 as The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations; its opening poem, “The Church-porch,” carries the aim-high stanza that everything here descends from. Herbert was also a working collector of proverbs — his Outlandish Proverbs (1640) gathered over a thousand sayings from many countries — and that, more than anything he actually wrote, is why anonymous folk wisdom keeps drifting onto his name.