Have pity,
O Lord God, lest they who go by the way trample on the unfledged bird,
and send Thine angel to replace it into the nest, that it may live,
till it can fly.
But others, unto whom these words are no longer a nest, but deep
shady fruit-bowers, see the fruits concealed therein, fly joyously
around, and with cheerful notes seek out, and pluck them. For
reading or hearing these words, they see that all times past and to
come, are surpassed by Thy eternal and stable abiding; and yet that
there is no creature formed in time, not of Thy making. Whose will,
because it is the same that Thou art, Thou madest all things, not by
any change of will, nor by a will, which before was not, and that
these things were not out of Thyself, in Thine own likeness, which
is the form of all things; but out of nothing, a formless
unlikeness, which should be formed by Thy likeness (recurring to Thy
Unity, according to their appointed capacity, so far as is given to
each thing in his kind), and might all be made very good; whether they
abide around Thee, or being in gradation removed in time and place,
made or undergo the beautiful variations of the Universe.
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