Here a little child I stand
Heaving up my either hand.
Cold as paddocks though they be,
Here I lift them up to Thee,
For a benison to fall
On our meat, and on us all.

These lines are from Robert Herrick’s devotional verse, written in the milieu of early Stuart England. Herrick (1591–1674), an Anglican priest and poet, is best known for Hesperides (1648) and its companion volume of religious poems, His Noble Numbers (1648). The poem is voiced as a child’s simple table-prayer: hands lifted to God for a blessing (“benison”) upon the family meal. The homely detail of cold hands underscores winter poverty or plain domestic life, while the act of prayer situates everyday nourishment within a sacred order—typical of Herrick’s ability to yoke intimate household moments to liturgical feeling.

The speaker’s childlike posture—standing, raising both hands—emphasizes humility and dependence. The striking comparison “Cold as paddocks” (i.e., as cold as frogs/toads) makes the prayer bodily and immediate: devotion is not abstract but offered through discomfort and need. “Benison” links the scene to traditional Christian graces before meals, suggesting that food is a gift requiring gratitude and sanctification. The final line broadens the request from “meat” (food generally) to “us all,” implying that the blessing sought is both physical sustenance and communal well-being. Herrick’s plain diction and cadence aim for memorability and use in domestic devotion.