Stanza Two

Lord am I thine? Art thou, Lord, mine? So rich!

How doth thy wealthy bliss branch out thy sweets

Through all things present? These the vent-holes which 

Let out those ravishing joys our souls to greet?

Empower my powers, sweet Lord, till they raise

My ‘ffections that thy glory on them blaze.

Summary: Having set forth his general complaint, the poet turns to make a direct address to the Lord. This prayer carries a different tone than many of the other poems by Taylor. Here the vein is closer to the Song of Songs. This is the language of lovers “am I thine.” In stanza eight, he will pray, “make my heart thy bed.” In between these points will be a meditation which is the answer to the prayer in this stanza that God will “let out those ravishing joys” to enflame his soul. He prays that he may have such an experience that his affects will blaze.

Notes:

Lord am I thine? Art thou, Lord, mine? This line comes almost directly from Canticles 2:16, “My beloved is mine, and Iam his: he feedeth among the lilies.”

Song of Solomon 2:16 (AV)

So rich! An expression of how much the poet has (if he is the Lord’s and the Lord’s is his). The modern idiom would make this ironic in a way wholly inappropriate here.

How doth thy wealthy bliss branch out thy sweets

Through all things present? The good things of God are God’s  “Wealthy bliss” and “thy sweets”. 

This goodness is propagated throughout the creation: This will provide the basis for Taylor’s mediation on ‘all things’ things are thine. The issue which the middle stanzas of the poem will answer is the implicit question: How can the seeming evil in the world be a good which is mine?

These the vent-holes which 

Let out those ravishing joys our souls to greet?

The idea here is interesting: it seems to be a breach between heaven and earth whereby “ravishing joy” is passed into creation which is then apprised and “greeted” by the soul. The picture is clear enough. But if Taylor was making an allusion, I am not certain where he gained an original. 

Interestingly, I found some evidence of “ravishing joy” prior to Taylor: The precise phrase was used by Thomas Watson, “but there is a blessed sight a coming, ‘they shall see God;’ and in him are all sparkling beauties, and ravishing joys to be found.” Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 273.

He also uses similar phrases elsewhere in the same volume, “

“If the joy of FAITH be such, what will the joy of VISION be? the sight of Christ will amaze the eye with wonder, and ravish the heart with joy.” Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 267.

the soul shall not so desire God, but it shall still be full; nor shall it be so full, but it shall still desire; so sweet will God be, that the more the saints behold God, the more they will be ravished with desire and delight.

Thomas Watson, “Discourses upon Christ’s Sermon on the Mount,” in Discourses on Important and Interesting Subjects, Being the Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; Glasgow: Blackie, Fullarton, & Co.; A. Fullarton & Co., 1829), 269.

But this citation from the introduction to Richard Sibbes’ sermon, The Bride’s Coming, interestingly has the same tone of intimacy and was well as this particular phrase, “For what ravishing joy, what inexplicable sweetness shall then everlasting[ly] possess our souls, whenas we who have been a long time contracted to our Lord and husband, shall see that blessed time come, when we shall have that glorious marriage between him and us, really and royally solemnised, in the presence of God and his holy angels.” 

Empower my powers, It is unclear precisely what Taylor means. It could be the power of the soul to apprehend the “ravishing joys”, or the power of the soul be responsive (or perhaps both). The end-result is plain enough. An interesting expansion on this idea is found in Taylor’s near predecessor, “What is love to God?—Methinks a lax description best suits my design. This divine love,—it is the unspeakable enlargement of the heart towards God; it is the ecstasy and ravishment of the heart in God; it is the soul’s losing itself in God; it is the continual working of the heart towards God. Every faculty of the soul is actually engaged; the mind is musing and plodding how to please God, and enjoy him; the will is graciously obstinate, the policy of hell cannot charm it off its object; the affections are all passions in their eager motions towards God; the conscience is a busy-body, necessitating the whole man to a jealous watch.

James Nichols, Samuel Annesley, “How to Love God with all Our Hearts, Souls, and Minds,” Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 574.

that thy glory on them blaze. Rather than the affections blazing with glory, glory blazes on the affections. It is an interesting image.

Prosody:

Lord am I thine? Art thou, Lord, mine? The accent comes on the first syllable: LORD am  i THINE? I would scan the next clause with an accent on both LORD and MINE. There is an internal rhyme: thine/mine.

Lines 2-4 of the stanza have two enjambments: This matches the sense of this bliss pouring out everywhere: it is not even contained in the line. 

Empower my powers: not only repeats the sound, but the sense is repeated by means of a noun being made the direct object of the verb of the same stem.