Prayer (II)
The Ease of Prayer
The poet marvels at how quickly and easily prayer reaches God, whose majesty does not disdain a simple lifting of the eyes.
How easy and quick it is to reach you, my blessed Lord! How suddenly our requests can reach your ear! It goes to show that majesty does not dislike being easy to approach.1 If I only lift my eyes, my petition is made: You can no more fail to hear than you can die.✦2
The Power That Sustains All
Reflecting on God's almighty arm that orders the cosmos, the poet acknowledges that every request is already provided for, and our only fault is the shallowness of our asking.
What supreme, almighty power your great arm has—the arm that spans east and west and pins the center to the sphere!3 By it all things live out their measured hour. We can't ask for anything that isn't already there; we can only blame the shallowness of our request.
Love Incarnate Opens the Way
The poet extols God's immeasurable love, which took on flesh and curse to destroy sin and open the path for divine generosity.
What immeasurable love you are filled with—you who, when you couldn't die, were eager to take on our flesh and our curse, and for our sakes personally rebuke sin, so that by destroying what had tied your purse shut, you might open the way for generosity!✦✦45
Prayer Above All
Because Ease, Power, and Love attend God's throne, the poet declares that he would sacrifice all worldly goods to keep prayer as his sole companion.
Since, then, these three wait on your throne—Ease, Power, and Love—I value prayer so highly that if I had to give up everything but one, wealth, fame, gifts, virtues, all of them would go. Dear prayer and I would live together, and for every inch lost I'd quickly gain an ell.67
Read the original English
OF what an easie quick accesse, My blessed Lord, art thou! how suddenly May our requests thine eare invade! To shew that state dislikes not easinesse. If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made: Thou canst no more not heare, then thou canst die.
Of what supreme almightie power Is thy great arm which spans the east and west, And tacks the centre to the sphere! By it do all things live their measur'd houre: We cannot ask the thing which is not there, Blaming the shallownesse of our request.
Of what unmeasurable love Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die, Wert fain to take our flesh and curse, And for our sakes in person sinne reprove; That by destroying that which ty'd thy purse, Thou mightst make way for liberalitie!
Since then these three wait on thy throne, Ease, Power, and Love; I value prayer so, That were I to leave all but one, Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go; I and deare prayer would together dwell, And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.121.1 — A song of ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
- ↩Gal.3.13;John.1.14 — Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." John.1.14 — And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
- ↩2Cor.5.21 — God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Notes
- 1 ↩Source 'state' means high rank/dignity/majesty (God's royal estate), not political government; 'easinesse' is approachability, continuing 'easie quick accesse' above.
- 2 ↩Source 'suit' is a petition or formal request in prayer, not clothing. Source 'then' is the Early Modern spelling of 'than'.
- 3 ↩“Pins the center to the sphere” keeps Herbert’s cosmological image: God fastening the earthly center to the heavenly sphere, holding the whole frame together.
- 4 ↩“in person sinne reprove” is compressed Early Modern English: Christ, in his own person, rebukes/convicts sin (and, in Pauline echo, bears sin’s charge). Rendered as “personally rebuke sin”; the Incarnation–Atonement force is retained.
- 5 ↩“ty’d thy purse” / “liberalitie” keeps Herbert’s economic metaphor: what closed the purse (the barrier to free giving) is destroyed so generosity can flow. “Liberality” modernized to “generosity.”
- 6 ↩An ell is an old unit of length (roughly forty-five inches). The line keeps Herbert's proverbial trade: lose a little, gain far more.
- 7 ↩Source 'endowments' is rendered as 'gifts' (talents, natural powers), not as financial bequests.
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