“The Envoy of Mr. Cogito” is a medium-length poem in free verse, divided into fifteen short stanzas. The title contains a pun, for Mr. Cogito is an envoy, a kind of messenger, and the poem is also an envoy (or envoi), summarizing the poet’s message in the closing lines of his collection Pan Cogito. Envoys, however, are usually diplomats, conveying carefully worded messages from their governments; they are the bearers of political, not poetic, statements. Yet the language of both diplomacy and poetry is simultaneously precise and ambiguous, providing room for multiple and even contradictory interpretations. Herbert’s poetry is political—if only by implication—since it addresses itself to the fate of the messenger, the poet, Mr. Cogito, who must refuse to be an executioner, informer, or coward and must, instead, abide by his sense of what is true and good.
There are at least two ways of interpreting who is speaking in the poem. Someone is addressing Mr. Cogito, providing him with a set of instructions, or Mr. Cogito is speaking to himself, directing himself to “go upright” among those who are on their knees or fallen in the dust—the defeated, in other words—and among “those with their backs turned,” the ones who will not acknowledge reality. Although Mr. Cogito must deliver his message, he is told (or he is telling himself) that he will not be a survivor, that his “last prize” is the “golden fleece of...
(The entire section is 504 words.)