English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray. The Harvard Classics. 190914. |
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220. The Elixir |
| George Herbert (15931633) |
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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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