Which is the effect the poet intended. The mystery of prayer refuses the control and constraint of definition. Instead of saying "Prayer is…", the poet turns a kaleidoscope, a changing continuity of colour and shape, each image valid, and none of them sufficient. Mystery remains mystery, but it is the mystery of love, a relationship between the human heart and God, in which intimacy and transcendence, mercy and judgement, peace and yearning, come together by the grace that is always there before us.
Prayer (I)
By George Herbert
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 tow'r,
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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