In George Herbert's poem "The Pulley," consider the image of the pulley as the means or device (through "repining restlessness") by which God...

In George Herbert’s poem “The Pulley,” the pulley seems an
effective image for suggesting the way God encourages man’s upward connection with, and
movement toward, God.

Interestingly, the image of a pulley
is never mentioned in the poem itself, only in the title.  Why, then, did Herbert (who
was very deliberate in the way he titled poems, as in “The Collar”) choose to call this
poem “The Pulley”?  He could easily have called it something like “The Glass of Gifts.” 
Why, then, “The Pulley”?

In Herbert’s time, the word
“pulley” had a number of meanings or connotations that make it relevant to this poem. 
In her splendid new edition of Herbert’s poems (The English Poems of George
Herbert), Helen Wilcox suggests and reports several ways in which the image
of the pulley seems relevant to the poem.  Among these are the
following:

• A pulley is used to lift something
  heavy.  In this case, God tries to lift man, heavy with
  sin.


• Paradoxically, by pulling down
  on the rope of a pulley, something heavy is lifted upward (in this
  case, symbolically, toward God). (See page 147 of the Wilcox
  edition)

In addition to considering these
suggestions, one might also note the following relevant ideas (see The Oxford
English Dictionary):

• In Herbert’s
  day, pulleys were often used as parts of instruments of torture. Obviously the
  metaphorical pulley in Herbert’s poem has precisely the opposite
  function.


• Pulleys were often used in Herbert’s time to
  transmit power and to provide guidance – two senses very relevant to this
  poem.


• The word “pulley” could be used not simply as a
  noun but also as a verb meaning “to raise or hoist.”  Thus the poem’s title suggests not
  only a thing but also an action.

Why, then, did
Herbert not spell out these meanings in his poem?  Why did he give his poem a title that
doesn’t seem immediately relevant to the actual phrasing of the poem?  Probably Herbert
wanted his readers to think – to make the connections themselves between the intriguing
title and the actual poem.  By encouraging people to use their God-given gift of reason,
Herbert himself tried to pull them closer to God.