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

The Elixir

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, if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven 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.