English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 220. The Elixir |
| | | George Herbert (1593–1633) |
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| TEACH me, my God and King, | |
| In all things Thee to see, | |
| And what I do in anything | |
| To do it as for Thee. | |
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| Not rudely, as a beast | 5 |
| To run into an action; | |
| But still to make Thee prepossest | |
| And give it his perfection. | |
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| A man that looks on glass | |
| On it may stay his eye, | 10 |
| Or if he pleaseth, through it pass, | |
| And then the heaven espy. | |
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| All may of Thee partake | |
| Nothing can be so mean | |
| Which with his tincture, ‘for Thy sake,’ | 15 |
| Will not grow bright and clean. | |
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| A servant with this clause | |
| Makes drudgery divine; | |
| Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, | |
| Makes that and the action fine. | 20 |
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| This is the famous stone | |
| That turneth all to gold, | |
| For that which God doth touch and own | |
| Cannot for less be told. | |
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