George Herbert

I have to say I also liked Herbert. His writing and rhyming style are simple but at the same time his poems are full of metaphors. So in a way makes up for the simplistic nature of the poem by giving the reader something to think about. Personally I would rather read a poem that sounds simple to the ear but has a lot of intrinsic meaning than a poem with complicated wording that has the meaning right on the surface. Even though a modern reader might have trouble deciphering the meanings unless they really knew their history of the 1600s, for example when in "Jordan" its says "false hair" the reader would have to know it meant a wig which in turn leads to wealthy people wear wigs which means vanity and embellishement and that wigs were used to cover up things on a person that wasnt so nice. So as you can see two words in a poem can really have a snowball effect and if the reader dosent understand the first "level" of the meaning they miss out on all the subsequent ones. I know a lot of people probably think its really cheesy but I even like how Herbert made a few of his peoms into the objects that were the title of the poem itself such as "The Alter" and "Easter Wings".