With flowers and verdure to adorn his way;
Where all the creatures due obedience give;
The winds to sweep his chambers every day;
The clouds to wash his rooms, the ceiling gay
With glittering stars, that night’s dark empire brave;
If such an house God to another gave,
How shine those splendid courts He for Himself will have?
And if a heavy cloud, opaque at night,
In which the sun may seem embodied,
Deprived of all its dregs we see so white,