Motivation Poem

Divine Power Is Spread Everywhere

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

A bird and its young had been captured, and Eckermann was amazed to seethat it went on feeding its young inside his house.

`If you believed in God, you would not be surprised.

If God did not inspirethe bird with this powerful instinct towards its young,

and ifthe 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 world from inside,harbours the world in Himself,

Himself in the world,

so all that lives and weaves and is in Himnever 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 samething flows, eternally repeating,

if an arch, though manifold, can mightilyhold itself together,

If all things pour out lust for life,the smallest and the biggest stars,

Yet all this striving, all this struggleIs eternal peace in God the Lord.
Eternal, living action worksto recreate the createdso it never rigidifies.

What was not, it must become:bright suns, coloured worlds,never can it rest.