George Herbert: Teach me, my God and King

The following striking stanzas of George Herbert, an old English poet, now almost forgotten, illustrate and sustain some of the views which have now been expressed.

TEACH ME, MY GOD AND KING.

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in anything

To do it unto Thee.

Not  rudely, as a beast,

To run into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest

And give it thy perfection.

A man, that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye,

Or,  if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

All may of Thee partake,

Nothing can be so mean,

That with this tincture — FOR THY SAKE 

Will not grow bright and clean.

A servant, with this clause,

Makes drudgery divine;

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that, and the action, fine.

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

— from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 8.