From the George Herbert festival 2014
The George Herbert Festival in Salisbury between 10th and 12th June 2014 was brilliant. For me it was a rich mix of three great wonders. 1) Our relationship with The Creator, 2) A celebration of creative expression and 3) the significance of historical narrative. This inspired me to attempted to do what Mary Sydney, Herbert's patron, enjoyed doing with the Psalms, and paraphrase the Herbert poem 'Prayer'.
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Prayer the Churches banquet, Angel age,
Gods breath in man returned to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;
Engine against th' Almightie, sinners 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 stares heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices; something understood
Communion - the eternal celebration,
Our life force from the origins of time,
Reflected images, face a heavenly destination,
The perfect interaction joining soil and the sublime;
Empowered by their Lord, transgressors are fortified,
With crashing noises, kill the thing they love,
A sudden fault-line, and the world transmogrified,
A peculiar call, affecting all from above;
Our contrary desires, all things made good,
Bountiful provision, joy shared by all,
As originally intended, humanity stands tall,
The extraordinary about us, sweetness of heaven,
Echo from afar, an interstellar fragrance,
An exquisite land, now all making sense
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