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.
—George Herbert
Father,As a former Anglican minister, what is your take on Herbert?I’ve always loved his anagram Mary/Army:”How like an army her name doth represent-In whom the Lord of Hosts did pitch hisn tent!”But decades later after Eng Lit 101, I read a poem where he hesitated to laud Mary, for fear of praise only belonging to her Son.