Never having experienced anything that I would attribute to a supernatural cause, I am obliged to confess that my prayers have always gone unanswered. But I only have to read George Herbert — rector of a small church near where I grew up, and therefore a poet who has always been particularly precious to me — to regret this:
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
The land of spices; something understood.
To read more from our Spectator survey of answered prayers, click here