With Thee I speak: Lord, thou dost understand!
Nor mind I how mad tongues my life reprove.
Full well I know the world is 'neath Thine eye.
And to each part thereof belongs Thy love:
But for the general welfare wisely planned
The parts must suffer change;--they do not die,
For nature ebbs and flows eternally;--
But to such change we give the name of Death
Or Evil, whensoe'er we feel the strife
Which for the universe is joy and life,
Though for each part it seems mere lack of breath.--
So in my body every part I see
With lives and deaths alternate rife,
All tending to its vital unity.