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Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.
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“Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.”

George Herbert

Source
Love (III)
Date
1633
Meaning

Meaning of “Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew…”

Herbert stages divine Love as a host welcoming a speaker who feels unworthy, turning shame and hesitation into a Christian meditation on grace and acceptance.

Source context

Where does it come from?

“Love (III),” posthumously published in The Temple (1633), represented by Poetry Foundation. “Love” functions as a personified divine presence within explicitly Christian devotional poetry; the exchange is theological lyric, not secular relationship advice.

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Acceptance Quotes About Reality, Limits & ChangeForgivenessLoveSelf-WorthShortThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionReligion
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“Love me against temptation, and I will love thee notwithstanding thine infirmities.”

John Bunyan · The Holy War · 1682
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Meaning & context

Within Bunyan’s Christian allegory, Emmanuel asks Mansoul for continued loyalty amid temptation while promising continuing love despite weakness.

Source details

The Holy War, represented by Project Gutenberg #395. Emmanuel addresses the allegorical town of Mansoul in an explicitly Christian passage about redemption, temptation and divine love. Emmanuel is the Christ-like fictional/allegorical speaker; the sentence is not Bunyan autobiography or a nonreligious factual guarantee.

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Love has no age, no limit, and no death.
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“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”

John Galsworthy · Indian Summer of a Forsyte · 1918
Meaning & context

Irene answers an older man’s skepticism by insisting that love is not confined by age and does not simply vanish when a person or relationship passes away.

Source details

Indian Summer of a Forsyte, represented in Project Gutenberg #2594. Irene says the line to old Jolyon while speaking about her dead lover; it is emotionally charged fictional dialogue, and the surrounding conversation immediately gives old Jolyon a more ironic response.

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The noble soul has reverence for itself.
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“The noble soul has reverence for itself.”

Friedrich Nietzsche · Beyond Good and Evil · 1886
Meaning & context

The line connects nobility with an inward standard of dignity rather than dependence on applause, rank, or approval from other people.

Source details

Beyond Good and Evil, section 287, Helen Zimmern public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #4363. The represented witness prints “THE NOBLE SOUL HAS REVERENCE FOR ITSELF” in capitals; the frozen catalog keeps ordinary capitalization. Nietzsche’s claim belongs to his rank / nobility argument and is not an evidence-based rule of self-esteem.

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God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie!
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“God forbid you should ever be aught but yourself, my Elspie!”

Arthur Hugh Clough · The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich · 1848
Voice: Fictional character · Philip
Meaning & context

Philip answers Elspie’s fear that marriage and class expectations might require her to become someone else by insisting that he wants her to remain herself.

Source details

The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich (1848), represented in Project Gutenberg’s Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough. Philip speaks to Elspie during their courtship conversation after she says she does not want to become “a lady.” The line is fictional verse dialogue and is kept under Philip’s local voice rather than treated as Clough autobiography.

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But esteem rises from a higher source, the merit of the soul.
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“But esteem rises from a higher source, the merit of the soul.”

Richard Steele · The Conscious Lovers · 1722
Voice: Fictional character · Indiana
Meaning & context

Indiana distinguishes esteem from surface attraction by grounding lasting regard in inward character rather than external advantages.

Source details

The Conscious Lovers, represented in Project Gutenberg #55922, Indiana speaking to Bevil Jr. The play was first performed and published in 1722. The sentence is fictional character dialogue and is therefore preserved under Indiana’s local dramatic voice rather than flattened into Steele autobiography.

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If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast.
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“If goodness lead him not, yet weariness May toss him to my breast.”

George Herbert · The Pulley · 1633
Meaning & context

Herbert’s poem imagines restlessness and weariness as forces that may turn a person toward God when abundance and comfort do not, within its specifically Christian account of human desire.

Source details

“The Pulley,” from The Temple (1633), represented by Poetry Foundation. The ending is spoken by God within Herbert’s devotional conceit and expresses Christian theology rather than a medical or psychological explanation of fatigue.