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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  Earth and Heaven

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Giles Fletcher (1588?–1623)

Earth and Heaven

 
GAZE but upon the house where man embow’rs:
With flow’rs and rushes pavèd is his way,
Where all the creatures are his servitors,
The winds do sweep his chambers every day,
And clouds do wash his rooms, the ceiling gay        5
    Starred aloft the gilded knobs embrave:
    If such a house God to another gave,
How shine those glittering courts He for Himself will have!
 
And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night,
In which the sun may be embodied,        10
Depur’d of all his dross we see so white,
Burning in melted gold his watery head,
Or round with ivory edges silvered:
    What lustre super-excellent will HE
    Lighten on those that shall His sunshine see,        15
In that all-glorious court in which all glories be?