Easter Wings

It was originally formatted sideways on facing pages and is in the tradition of shaped poems that goes back to ancient Greek sources.

The poem is in the form of an allusive riddle whose subject is Eros, the god of love, but where the only hint of his wings is contained in the adjective referring to him, “swift-flying”.

The poem's two-stanzas were originally formatted sideways across opposite pages on its first publication, making the likeness to two sets of wings more obvious.

Christopher Harvey’s The Synagogue, originally published anonymously in 1640, announced itself on the title page to be “in imitation of Mr George Herbert”.

[10] Its celebration of bodily and spiritual resurrection draws its theme from 1 Corinthians 15, and it is specially notable that the word ‘victory’ found in the Biblical text is repeated in both stanzas of the poem.

[13] That disapproval was to remain in place until the revival of critical interest in the Metaphysical Poets at the start of the 20th century.