A Preparation to Prayer
MS's: F-H 283, 13-15; Folger, 198.
1903 Reynolds prints Folger text, 214.
1696 Tate, 85-6.
There is an allusion to Hamlet, Claudius's "Words without thoughts, never to heaven go." Probably written in another moment of self-alienation and despair; it ends "How can'st thou hope, t'escape those forrain harms,/Who thus against thy welf, turn'st thy defensive arms?"
Page Last Updated 7 January 2003