George Herbert

Affliction (III)

My heart did heave, and there came forth, O God!
By that I knew that thou wast in the grief, 
To guide and govern it to my relief, 
          Making a scepter of the rod: 
              Hadst thou not had Thy part,         
Sure the unruly sigh had broke my heart. 
 
But since thy breath gave me both life and shape, 
Thou knowst my tallies; and when there's assign'd 
So much breath to a sigh, what's then behinde? 
          Or if some yeares with it escape,       
              The sigh then onely is 
A gale to bring me sooner to my blisse. 
 
Thy life on earth was grief, and thou art still 
Constant unto it, making it to be 
A point of honour now to grieve in me,       
          And in thy members suffer ill. 
              They who lament one crosse, 
Thou dying dayly, praise thee to thy losse.