But shudderingly, scarce a shred between,
Lie bare to the universal prick of light?
Is it for nothing we grow old and weak,
We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too.
To me, that story—ay, that Life and Death
Of which I wrote 'it was'—to me, it is;
—Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else.
Is not God now i' the world his power first made?
Is not his love at issue still with sin,
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth?