Prayer by George Herbert
Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age,
God’s breath in man returning to his birth.
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth;
Engine against the Almighty, sinners’ tower,
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, 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.
EROS = human love, based on passionate attraction;
AGAPE = spiritual or idealized love; the love of benevolence, friend-
ship of the spirit
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