Prayer, the Church’s banquet

Prayer, the Church’s banquet, angel’s 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, men 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.

– “Prayer (I)”, George Herbert (1593–1633)

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