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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Dedication Hymn

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Dedication Hymn

By Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867)

THE PERFECT world by Adam trod

Was the first temple—built by God;

His fiat laid the corner-stone,

And heaved its pillars one by one.

He hung its starry roof on high—

The broad illimitable sky;

He spread its pavement, green and bright,

And curtained it with morning light.

The mountains in their places stood—

The sea—the sky—and “all was good”;

And when its first pure praises rang,

The morning stars together sang.

Lord! ’tis not ours to make the sea

And earth and sky a house for thee;

But in thy sight our off’ring stands—

A humbler temple, made with hands.