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 sceptre 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 assigned So much breath to a sigh, what's then behind? Or if some years with it escape, The sigh then only is A gale to bring me sooner to my bliss. 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 cross, Thou dying daily, praise thee to thy loss.