The God of love my shepherd is,
And He that doth me feed:
While He is mine, and I am His,
What can I want or need?
He leads me to the tender grass,
Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass;
In both I have the best.
Or if I stray, He doth convert
And bring my mind in frame:
And all this not for my desert,
But for His holy name.
Yea, in death’s shady black abode
Well may I walk, not fear:
For Thou art with me; and Thy rod
To guide, Thy staff to bear.
Nay, Thou dost make me sit and dine,
Ev’n in my enemies sight:
My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night.
Surely Thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days;
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.
–George Herbert, from “The 23rd Psalm” in Herbert: Poems (Everyman Library) (New York: Knopf, 2004), 226.
