soul in paraphrase

My favorite thing about this poem is that it has no verbs. I also really love sonnets, and, after four weeks of him, I can even admit a fairly substantial affection (only slightly grudging) for Mr. Herbert. I thought it was probably past time to spend at least a little time -- fourteen lines or so -- in my own literary period.

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.

—George Herbert (1593-1633), 'Prayer', from The Temple, 1633. Or, slightly more accurately: 'Prayer (I)', from The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations by Mr. George Herbert, edited by Nicholas Ferrar (1593-1637) (Cambridge: Printed by Thom. Buck, and Roger Daniel, printers to the Universitie, 1633).