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.