The Elixir

By George Herbert 1593–1633 George Herbert

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in anything

To do it as for Thee.

Not rudely, as a beast,

To run into an action;

But still to make Thee prepossest,

And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or it he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heav'n espy.

All may of Thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his 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 th' 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.

Biography

Nestled somewhere within the Age of Shakespeare and the Age of Milton is George Herbert. There is no Age of Herbert: he did not consciously fashion an expansive literary career for himself, and his characteristic gestures, insofar as these can be gleaned from his poems and other writings, tend to be careful self-scrutiny rather than rhetorical pronouncement; local involvement rather than broad social engagement; and complex, . . .

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