Easter Wings
By George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633)
About the Title
Easter Wings is a poem by George Herbert published in his posthumous collection, The Temple (1633). Easter is the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and held (in the Western Church) between March 21 and April 25.
Critical Summary
The speaker begins with the notion that God created man to enjoy peace and abundance. However, because of sin, humans have lost this primary paradise. Their condition worsen s day by day. Then the speaker addresses the Creator directly and asks to rise in the sky like a lark. Here the poet wants to say that only the Omnipotent can remove the flaws of the soul. As an Easter poem, the image of birds and wings symbolizes the resurrection of Christ. The speaker then calls on humanity to join Christ and celebrate the “Victory” of the resurrection over death. The message here is that human beings should lead a pure religious life. If they can succeed in it, then the “Fall” out of Paradise because of sin would be worth it even more because it allows believers to rise with Christ. In a nutshell, the Almighty becomes overjoyous when He sees that His servants are worshipping Him from the core of their hearts and feel shame before him after making mistakes.
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The second stanza tells a similar story from the perspective of materialistic pains and suffering. The speaker here refers to all the people in the universe. Even at a young age, he suffered a lot. It was a punishment inflicted by the Holy Spirit just as it was given to Adam and Eve. The life of the speaker gradually decreased, and his health began to suffer. Thus, he joyfully declares that all the pains and sufferings of our materialistic life get stemmed or are produced from our own mistakes.
He then asks to feel the victory of the resurrection and to join God. Using the metaphor of “Imp,” a term from falconry that means adding feathers to an existing wing, the speaker asks to rise with Christ to the Kingdom of Heaven. If he succeeds, it is because of the great lows and pains he suffered that taught him how to fly. If he is successful, then it will be proved that he has been successful because of his great frustration and hardship that has taught him to fly. The underlying morality of the final lines of the poem is that the difficulties of the world are nothing but a source of encouragement to communicate with our Lord.
