Yesterday we completed our journey through my new Sonnet Sequence After Prayer, and I thought it might be good to gather it all together in a Hypertext of Herbert’s Original sonnet ‘Prayer’, to which my sequence was a phrase by phrase response. So here is Herbert’s original poem, and a recording of my reading of it. But now, if you click on any of the twenty-seven glorious phrases of this poem you will be able to summon up my reflections on it and the sonnet I have written in response. I hope you enjoy it.
You can hear me read Herbert’s poem by clicking on the title or the ‘Play’ Button
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.
Gentle exemplar, help us in our trials
Malcolm Guite 