Source identified1
Image design Charcoal
Read & copy
“Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.”
Meaning & context
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 details
“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.