George Herbert, "The Collar"

In 1633, one Nicholas Ferrars arranged for the publication of a book written by a close friend who had recently died.  The book was called The Temple; Ferrars' friend was a small-town pastor and poet—George Herbert—who has since become one of the most highly revered religious poets in the language. Herbert's "The Collar" is an extraordinary poem by this extraordinary poet. The poem expresses a familiar psychological and perhaps spiritual conflict between the desire for freedom and worldly pleasure and the commitment to a more quietly constrained life of piety and religious devotion.