"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." - Jerome

Friday, November 13, 2009

Herbert: Prayer

Prayer (I)
by George Herbert from "The Church"



PRAYER the Church's banquet, Angels' age,
____God's breath in man returning to his birth,
____The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth ;
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner's tower,
____Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
____The six days world-transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear ;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
____Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,
____Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
____Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,
____The land of spices, something understood.

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