Prayer is
The world in tune,
A spirit-voice,
And vocal joys,
Whose echo is heaven’s bliss.
O let me climb
When I lie down!

These lines come from Henry Vaughan’s devotional lyric “Prayer,” written in the mid-17th century and published in his religious collection *Silex Scintillans* (1650; expanded 1655). Vaughan (1621–1695), a Welsh poet associated with the Metaphysical tradition, turned decisively toward sacred poetry during the upheavals of the English Civil War and the Commonwealth period. In *Silex Scintillans* he explores prayer, repentance, and the soul’s longing for God in densely imagistic, musical language. The poem “Prayer” is structured as a sequence of metaphors that attempt to name prayer’s cosmic and spiritual effects, culminating in a plea for ascent—spiritual elevation even in the posture of rest or death.

Vaughan presents prayer as an act that harmonizes creation (“the world in tune”) and translates inward devotion into audible, communal praise (“a spirit-voice,” “vocal joys”). The “echo” reaching “heaven’s bliss” suggests prayer as both communication and participation: human utterance reverberates in divine joy, implying a continuity between earthly worship and heavenly felicity. The closing petition—“O let me climb / When I lie down!”—compresses a paradox typical of Metaphysical poetry: descent (lying down in sleep, humility, or death) becomes the occasion for ascent toward God. Prayer, then, is not merely request but transformation, a ladder of the soul that turns ordinary bodily states into spiritual motion.