Prayer (I)

By George Herbert 1593–1633

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.

Nick Cave - Hallelujah (Live 2001)

...And now, words from another Anglican of a very different stripe, George Herbert - whose words are no less coruscating, no less haunting -

The Foil.

If we could see below
The sphere of virtue, and each shining grace,
As plainly, as that above doth shew;
That were the better sky, the brighter place.

God hath made stars the foil
To set off virtues; griefs, to set off sinning.
Yet in this wretched world we toil;
As if grief were not foul, nor virtue winning.