Who trusts in God,
Fears not His rod.
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This truth may be by all believed: 
Whom God deceives, is well deceived.
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How? when? and where?—­No answer comes from high;
Thou wait’st for the Because, and yet thou ask’st not Why?
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If the whole is ever to gladden thee,
That whole in the smallest thing thou must see.
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Water its living strength first shows,
When obstacles its course oppose.
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Transparent appears the radiant air,
Though steel and stone in its breast it may bear;
At length they’ll meet with fiery power,
And metal and stones on the earth will shower.
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Whate’er a living flame may surround,
No longer is shapeless, or earthly bound. 
’Tis now invisible, flies from earth,
And hastens on high to the place of its birth.

1815.*
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PROCEMION.

In His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One’s name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality: 
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so’er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers
Onward thou’rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where’er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numbrest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.

1816.
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What God would outwardly alone control,
And on his finger whirl the mighty Whole? 
He loves the inner world to move, to view
Nature in Him, Himself in Nature too,
So that what in Him works, and is, and lives,
The measure of His strength, His spirit gives.

1816.
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Within us all a universe doth dwell;
And hence each people’s usage laudable,
That ev’ry one the Best that meets his eyes
As God, yea e’en his God, doth recognise;
To Him both earth and heaven surrenders he,
Fears Him, and loves Him too, if that may be.

1816.
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The metamorphosis of plants.

Thou art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers’d; any a name dost thou hear assign’d; one after another

Falls on thy list’ning ear, with a barbarian sound.  None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim’d; Yes, a sacred enigma!  Oh, dearest friend, could I only

Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!  Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,

Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit! 
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent

Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,