Affliction

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 know’st 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.