Reading the poetry of George Herbert is like entering a room in which a conversation is going on, and finding oneself drawn unwittingly into the dialogue. The tenor of the conversation is very often loving, but it can also seem perplexed, disappointed or anxious, and sometimes angry. The main speaker frequently addresses God, though occasionally we hear the voice of the Lord in response, gently nudging the protesting human towards greater understanding. The speaker enters into debates with God, but also with parts of his own self– his wayward thoughts, his hard heart– and sometimes seems to recount stories for an audience. Above all, the voice of the speaker is so familiar in all its variety of moods and tones that we, as readers, can find our own experiences given expression in the poems, and we may in some sense become the speaker, too. Reading, and re-reading, Herbert's poems is a process of self-discovery.

How can this be said in the early twenty-first century about a devotional poet who was writing four centuries ago? The key to the immediacy and accessibility of Herbert's verse is its rare balance of rhetorical skill and complexity on the one hand, and a simplicity and directness of style on the other. The closing line of his last lyric is about as plain and monosyllabic a statement as one could utter: ‘So I did sit and eat’ (‘Love (III)’). The power of the short line derives from its position, having been held back until the end of the poem after the sophisticated poetic dialogue and verbal dance that precede it; the impact of the line also stems from the layers of social and spiritual significance given during the poem to the act of eating. The lyric's remarkable clarity is thus an achieved simplicity, brought about by the writer's knowledge and craftsmanship. As Herbert writes in ‘Praise (II)’, the fresh spontaneity with which the feelings of the ‘heart’ are poured out is finely controlled by the poet's ‘utmost art’.

Many modern readers come to Herbert's poetry through its association with another art form, music, whether the words are familiar as hymns or in musical settings for concert performance.