"Consider the lilies of the field."
Lilies with your golden hue
Glistening in the morning dew,
Who more richly robed than you?
Kings cannot, with all their state,
Your fair glory emulate.
Lilies, you shall die and rot,
And your beauty be forgot,
One short day and you are not:
We, who are but common clay,
Shall outshine your bright array.
For the same Creative Power,
Who has bid you live and flower,
Who has fed you with his shower,
Has a fairer world than this
For the choice ones that are his.
In a land of golden light,
Clad in robes of heavenly white,
Ever living, ever bright,
They their voices high upraise
To exalt their Maker's praise.
"In them hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun."
Sun, that on this world dost shine,
Who can, what thou art, divine,
Though thy pure effulgent rays
Warm and cheer us all our days?
Sure thou art not, as was told
By some lying voice of old,
Source and Author of all light,
God apparent to man's sight.
Nor art thou a globe of flame,
Whence the earth projected came,
Till, arrested in its race,
All its fires were cooled in
Art thou then a sphere wherein
Seraphs live secure from sin,
Pure, refined, ethereal, bright,
Bathed in floods of living light?
Or art thou that fair abode,
Called the Paradise of God,
Where the spirits of the blest
Till great doomsday sweetly rest?
This at least, O Sun, we know,
He who made this world below,
When he would his light enshrine,
Bade thee be, and thou didst shine.
Ever then his glorious Name
Joyful in thy course proclaim,
Till, thy lofty mission done,
Thou with us must die, O Sun.
Ye clouds of rain,
Come round again
To swell the grain
And make the earth
Hasten its birth,
Wetting the clod
With dew of God
To make this isle
With verdure smile,
And all its bowers
Alive with flowers-
Treasures untold
Of purest gold
Not half so precious are,
As the rich drops of moisture ye in Heaven do bear.
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