A bird and its young had been captured, and Eckermann was amazed to see
that it went on feeding its young inside his house.
`If you believed in God, you would not be surprised. If God did not inspire
the bird with this powerful instinct towards its young, and if
the same did not pervade every living thing in nature, the world would not be able to exist!
But divine power is spread everywhere and eternal love is active everywhere.

What kind of God would push only from outside,
letting the cosmos circle round his finger?
He likes to drive the from inside,
harbours the in Himself, Himself in the ,
so all that lives and weaves and is in Him
never wants for his power or his spirit.

If the eye were not sun-like,
how could it ever spy the sun?
If God's own power lay not inside us,
how could divinity delight us?

If through infinity the same
thing flows, eternally repeating,
if an arch, manifold, can mightily
hold itself together,
If all things pour out lust for ,
the smallest and the biggest stars,
Yet all this striving, all this struggle
Is eternal peace in God the Lord.

Eternal, living action works
to recreate the created
so it never rigidifies.
What was not, it must become:
suns, coloured worlds,
never can it rest.