Prevenient

True to his Paphian mother, trace by trace, / slowly the Love-god with prevenient art, / begins the lost Sychaeus to efface, / and living passion to a breast impart / long dead to feeling, and a vacant heart.

Prevenient Grace deſcending had remov'd / The ſtonie from thir hearts, and made new fleſh / Regenerat grow inſtead, that ſighs now breath'd / Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer / Inſpir'd, and wing'd for Heav'n with ſpeedier flight / Then loudeſt Oratorie: […]

They drank and bet and muttered in an air of electric transiency, old men in gaitered sleeves galvanized from some stained sepia, posting time at cards prevenient of their dimly augured doom.