Close Talking: A Poetry Podcast

Episode #099 Prayer (I) - George Herbert

05.08.2020 - By Cardboard Box Productions, Inc.Play

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Jack and Connor go way back to the 1600s for the George Herbert poem, "Prayer (I)". They discuss the sonnet's beautiful meditation on prayer, its incredible contemporary feel, the profane and divine, and The Doors' Jim Morrison makes a shocking cameo.

Learn more about Herbert here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/george-herbert

Prayer (I)

By: George Herbert

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.

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