A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye, or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, and then the heaven espy is the 2nd verse of a hymn written by mystical poet George Herbert in 1630 or so. Did he forsee the modern predeliction for taking pictures and not seeing the view beyond?
I've been playing from a little book of Christmas carol tunes, published in what looks like the 1950s, by Eleanor Franklin Pike. She wrote a couple of carols herself and slipped them into the book, and wasn't averse to nicking a hymn tune to put to other carols. I didn't recognise the words but one of the tunes (Sandys) was familiar and stayed in my head; eventually some words seeped forward 50 years into my consciousness to go with it... "makes that, and the action, fine". Googling, of course, brought it to screen in less than x seconds, and the original poem is a mystical piece by G Herbert which scarcely looks like a celebration of higher things. Rather the signifying of lowly things as higher level thought. The verse that escaped me is Herbert's 4th: A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: who sweeps a room, as for Thy sake, makes that and the action fine. Hmmm, is this the excuse for sacred housework? It got tampered with by John Wesley however, and the sweet poetry in this verse vanished.
