A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul by George MacDonald

1. THOU art of this world, Christ. Thou know'st it all; Thou know'st our evens, our morns, our red and gray; How moons, and hearts, and seasons rise and fall; How we grow weary plodding on the way; Of future joy how present pain bereaves, Rounding us with a dark of mere decay, Tossed with a drift Of summer-fallen leaves.

2. Thou knowest all our weeping, fainting, striving; Thou know'st how very hard it is to be; How hard to rouse faint will not yet reviving; To do the pure thing, trusting all to thee; To hold thou art there, for all no face we see; How hard to think, through cold and dark and dearth, That thou art nearer now than when eye-seen on earth.