Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)The House Beautiful
| A naked house, a naked moor, | |
| A shivering pool before the door. | |
| A garden bare of flowers and fruit, | |
| And poplars at the garden foot: | |
| Such is the place that I live in, | 5 |
| Bleak without and bare within. | |
| Yet shall your ragged moor receive | |
| The incomparable pomp of eve, | |
| And the cold glories of the dawn | |
| Behind your shivering trees be drawn; | 10 |
| And when the wind from place to place | |
| Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, | |
| Your garden gloom and gleam again, | |
| With leaping sun, with glancing rain. | |
| Here shall the wizard moon ascend | 15 |
| The heavens, in the crimson end | |
| Of day’s declining splendour; here | |
| The army of the stars appear. | |
| The neighbour hollows, dry or wet, | |
| Spring shall with tender flowers beset; | 20 |
| And oft the morning muser see | |
| Larks rising from the broomy lea, | |
| And every fairy wheel and thread | |
| Of cobweb dew-bediamonded. | |
| When daisies go, shall winter-time | 25 |
| Silver the simple grass with rime; | |
| Autumnal frosts enchant the pool, | |
| And make the cart-ruts beautiful; | |
| And when snow-bright the moor expands, | |
| How shall your children clap their hands! | 30 |
| To make this earth, our hermitage, | |
| A cheerful and a changeful page, | |
| God’s bright and intricate device | |
| Of days and seasons doth suffice. | |