II

Why things so precious should be made

So prone, so easy, and so apt to fade

It is not easy to declare;

But God would have

His creatures brave,

And that too by their own continual care.

He gave them power every hour

Both to erect and to maintain a tower,

Which he far more in us doth prize

Than all the skies,

That we might offer it to Him,

And in our souls be like the Seraphim.