Prayer. (I)

GEORGE HERBERT

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,

     Gods 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’ 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 starres heard, the souls bloud,

     The land of spices; something understood.

[Recited 17 April 2017]

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

EMILY DICKINSON

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –  
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –  
To an admiring Bog!

[Recited 26 March 2017]