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.

                             Easter Wings
        Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
                 Though foolishly he lost the same,
                     Decaying more and more,
                         Till he became
                             Most poore:
                            With thee
                         O let me rise
                      As larks, harmoniously,
                And sing this day thy victories:
            Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

                                  The Altar
              A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
              Made of a heart and cemented with tears;
                    Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
                   No workman's tool hath touch'd the same.
                          A HEART alone
                         Is such a stone,
                         As nothing but
                         Thy pow'r doth cut.
                         Wherefore each part
                       Of my hard heart
                        Meets in this frame
                       To praise thy name.
                  That if I chance to hold my peace,
                  These stones to praise thee may not cease.
            Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
            And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

                                         Aaron
                        Holiness on the head,
             Light and perfections on the breast,
                   Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
             To lead them unto life and rest:
                         Thus are true Aarons drest.

                         Profaneness in my head,
              Defects and darkness in my breast,
                   A noise of passions ringing me for dead
              Unto a place where is no rest:
                    Poor priest, thus am I drest.

                       Only another head
           I have, another heart and breast,
                 Another music, making live, not dead,
            Without whom I could have no rest:
                      In him I am well drest.

                       Christ is my only head,
            My alone-only heart and breast,
                  My only music, striking me ev'n dead,
            That to the old man I may rest,
                       And be in him new-drest.

                       So, holy in my head,
            Perfect and light in my dear breast,
                  My doctrine tun'd by Christ (who is not dead,
            But lives in me while I do rest),
                      Come people; Aaron's drest.