The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations/Employment (I)

by George Herbert

For works with similar titles, see Employment.

¶ Employment.

IF as a flowre doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frosts extremitie
Nipt in the bud;

 The sweetnesse and the praise were thine:
 But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.

 For as thou dost impart thy grace,
 The greater shall our glorie be.
The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.

 Let me not languish then, and spend
 A life as barren to thy praise,
As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.

 All things are busie; onely I
 Neither bring hony with the bees,
Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.

 I am no link of thy great chain,
 But all my companie is a weed.
Lord place me in thy consort; give one strain
To my poore reed.