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.