The power of prayer, as noted in these other lines, is forceful, which may be the cause of fear, especially for unbelievers. Next, he compares prayer to music, calling it a “tune” that is both heard and, interestingly, feared. In prayer, man reproduces the act of creation, honoring God. Continuing with Biblical references, the speaker compares an hour of prayer to God’s six-day-long creation of the world (as God rested on the seventh day). It is the spear that pierced Christ’s side, one of his five wounds scholar Helen Wilcox writes that this wound offered direct access to God’s grace (177).

In addition, prayer is, metaphorically, the “reverse of thunder.” In another image of reciprocity, mankind sends thunder back to its source-God. The speaker uses a metaphor to describe prayer as an “engine” or weapon that allows Christians to confront and wage war against the “sinner’s tow’r,” in this case, the infamous tower of Babel. The next four lines of the poem continue to expand on the definition of prayer, shifting in tone to express not its celebratory aspects but its sheer power.

The rhyme between “earth” and “birth” in these four lines emphasizes that both mankind and the earth itself are the results of divine creation. However, prayer is not just a summary, but a tool for understanding: it is a “plummet,” a measuring device that gives knowledge of heaven and earth. The next two lines provide yet more definitions, suggesting prayer is the soul’s “paraphrase,” or the shorthand summary of man’s very soul. Moreover, this line emphasizes prayer as a reciprocal exchange between man and God. But prayer is not just reserved for angels when men pray, they return “God’s breath” to its source-God and their own spiritual birth. It is also “angel’s age,” something that goes back as far as the creation of angels. Prayer is “the church’s banquet,” or the food and sustenance that sustains the church.

The first four lines of the poem (which, in some editions of the poem, appear as a quatrain) produce six definitions of prayer. Written in the tradition of the systrophe, the poem elaborates multiple definitions for a single word, “prayer.” Each line provides one or two potential definitions or understandings of Christian prayer. Prayer (I) is a 14-line sonnet in iambic pentameter with an ABABCDCDEFFEGG rhyme scheme.

George herbert poem prayer