PRAYER. (I)
PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods 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’ Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;
Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood.
***^^^***
Is there
anywhere in the poetry of our langauge, a richer meditation on what prayer could, or might be? No
cutting of mystery down to size here. Instead an opening up of
theological possibility and spiritual option. The absence of the verb
to be, and therefore the reluctance to define, mean Herbert is not
saying what prayer is – instead he links a catena of images, suggestive
rather than definitive, biblical and classical, allusive and elusive,
but each of them hinting at why, in the words of one of Herbert's greatest fans, when it comes to devotion, "You are here to kneel / where prayer has been valid." (T S Eliot, 'Little Gidding', The Four Quartets)
I have a
copy of this sonnet, written out in calligraphic script by a friend, since died, who
learned calligraphy as a Japanese POW, sharing the same prison compound
as Laurens Van der Post. That sheet of paper (along with another by R S
Thomas, 'The Musician', worked by the same artist which I posted earlier), are the nearest I
possess to literary Icons – combining disciplined skill and art of
production with the crafted literary beauty of content. The Herbert sonnet I've looked at, read and re-read, know by heart, and its depth and range of reference to human longing and frustrated spiritual reach, still astonishes, and reassures.
Then some years ago
I published a paper on "Prayer (I)", exploring the subtle and complex
imagery Herbert has woven together, doing my level best to appreciate
Herbert's utmost art. At no stage did I do more than skim the surface.
Which is to be expected when studying a supreme exponent of
metaphysical poetry, whose passionate goal was to write verse worthy of
the One whose praise was beyond human words, yet whose Love made silence
impossible. So I keep coming back to this poem, heartened by its power to resist the solvent of critical analysis, and encouraged that it frustrates overly curious theologising. Reminds me again of Eliot's words:
You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity,
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.
