An Orison to Our Lord is a powerful meditational prayer-poem deeply set in traditions of affective piety felt for the incarnate, humanized Jesus. It asks a reader to identify corporeally with Jesus from his conception and birth — when “his goddede wes ihud in fleys” (line 6) — to his sweet vulnerability as a humble, submissive child. The nature of such an appeal breeds instinctive, protective affection for what is small and innocent. Then begins a sensate, increasingly brutal depiction of the Passion, which climaxes at the poem’s center, where horrific images of torture give way to a surreal subtext of sovereignty because the Crucifixion marks the moment of incarnate God’s transcendent victory. Ultimately, the speaker affirms that his faith has been deepened by this intense meditation upon Jesus as an example of supreme forbearance and patience, which he must try to match by firm belief (lines 57–58).

Composed in thirty-two couplets of irregular length, the poem has seven stanzas as indicated by colored capitals at the beginning of each. Anaphoric greetings to God unite the stanzas. Their usual form is “Jhesu, ich the grete,” causing the orison to become a salutation that hails Jesus in each stanza. Orison’s devotionalism resides empathetically in the petitioner’s sensate body. He is to imagine God in the flesh with his own flesh, meditating upon Jesus being born, raised, and then tortured. The prayer requests both bodily wellness and protection from God: “Of seorewe and sunne wite us myd isunde” (Keep us bodily whole against sorrow and sin; line 48). For further commentary on the fine craftsmanship of An Orison to Our Lord, see Fein-Children, pp. 222–23.

[Fols. 192r–193r. NIMEV 1948. DIMEV 3190. Quire: 5. Meter: 64 lines, rhyming in couplets, aa4–7, in stanzas of irregular length. Layout: Lines of irregular length, with medial and end punctuation (some looking like septenaries). A few times, two lines are copied continuously. Colored initials divide the lines into stanzas of irregular length: 8, 10, or 12 lines long. Because long lines are few, the caesureas are not indicated by spacing in this edition. Editions: Morris, pp. 139–41; Fein-Children, pp. 213–15, 222–23. Other MSS: None. Seventeenth-century transcription: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 120, pp. 601–17, by Welsh antiquary Edward Lluyd, Assistant Keeper (1683–1689) and Keeper (1691–1709) of the Ashmoleian Museum, Oxford (Hill-History, p. 203n1; and Hill-Part2, p. 276).]