But indeed we do not need to go to the
_Sermons_
to see that this is
Donne's meaning.
Donne's meaning.
John Donne
243.
_Heare us, weake ecchoes, O thou eare, and cry.
_ The 'cry' of
the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers
and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires
in our hearts. The 'eye' of _S_ and other MSS. , which also read
'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed
thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant. _JC_ tries
another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry. '
'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his
soule in prayer to God;. . . though his faith assure him, that God hath
granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea
before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and
mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to
grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his
prayer,' &c. _Sermons_ 80. 77. 786.
But indeed we do not need to go to the _Sermons_ to see that this is
Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e. g. in
Stanza xxiii:
Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord
We know not what to say:
Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.
O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,
Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.
'But in things of this kind (i. e. sermons), that soul that inanimates
them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in
the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets
him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and
hearts of the hearers and readers. ' Gosse, _Life, &c. _, i. 123: To . . .
the Countess of Montgomery.
'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St.
the editions is surely right. God is at once the source of our prayers
and their answerer. Our prayers are echoes of what His grace inspires
in our hearts. The 'eye' of _S_ and other MSS. , which also read
'wretches' for 'ecchoes', is due to a misapprehension of the condensed
thought, and 'eye' with 'ecchoes' is entirely irrelevant. _JC_ tries
another emendation: 'Oh thou heare our cry. '
'Every man who prostrates himselfe in his chamber, and poures out his
soule in prayer to God;. . . though his faith assure him, that God hath
granted all that he asked upon the first petition of his prayer, yea
before he made it, (for God put that petition in to his heart and
mouth, and moved him to aske it, that thereby he might be moved to
grant it), yet as long as the Spirit enables him he continues his
prayer,' &c. _Sermons_ 80. 77. 786.
But indeed we do not need to go to the _Sermons_ to see that this is
Donne's meaning. He has emphasized it already in this poem: e. g. in
Stanza xxiii:
Heare us, for till thou heare us, Lord
We know not what to say:
Thine eare to'our sighes, teares, thoughts gives voice and word.
O Thou who Satan heard'st in Jobs sicke day,
Heare thy selfe now, for thou in us dost pray.
'But in things of this kind (i. e. sermons), that soul that inanimates
them never departs from them. The Spirit of God that dictates them in
the speaker or writer, and is present in his tongue or hand, meets
him again (as we meet ourselves in a glass) in the eyes and ears and
hearts of the hearers and readers. ' Gosse, _Life, &c. _, i. 123: To . . .
the Countess of Montgomery.
'God cannot be called a cry', Grosart says; but St.
