Foresight: Drudgery

Johannes Vermeer, 'The Milkmaid', Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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'The Elixir' by George Herbert

​Teach me, my God and King,
In all things thee to see,
And what I do in any thing,
To do it as for thee:

Not rudely, as a beast,
To runne into an action;
But still to make thee prepossest,
And give it his perfection.

A man that looks on glasse,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,
And then the heav’n espie.

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 drudgerie 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 lesse be told.

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Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) was a Dutch painter.
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George Herbert (1593–1633) was a Welsh poet and an Anglican priest.