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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  Faith and Form

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)

Faith and Form

 
SACRED Religion, mother of form and fear,
  How gorgeously sometime dost thou sit decked,
What pompous vestures do we make thee wear,
  What stately piles we prodigal erect;
How sweet perfumed thou art, how shining clear,        5
  How solemnly observed, with what respect!
 
Another time all plain, all quite threadbare,
  Thou must have all within, and nought without;
Sit poorly, without light, disrobed; no care
  Of outward grace, t’amuse the poor devout;        10
Powerless, unfollowed, scarcely men can spare
  The necessary rites to set thee out.