"I saw Eternity the other night"

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 12 BCP 231)

"I saw Eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,

Driv’n by the spheres

Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world

And all her train were hurl’d."

"The World" by Henry Vaughan, a Welsh poet from the 1600's. Henry Vaughan was part of the Church of England, despite the Church being illegal at the time, and wrote many religious poems. Many of his poems talk about the difference between God's kingdom and the world, the difference between our linear time and eternity, the difference between what passes away and what stays true. 

Both the Collect for this coming Sunday and this Vaughan poem talk about the difference between what is temporary and what is eternal. The end of the poem talks about the ring of eternity being a gift from Jesus the bridegroom to his bride the Church. One of the Christian hopes we rest in is that the eternal kingdom of heaven will have no suffering as part of it. We will be moved with beauty and joy, for the sufferings and sorrows of this time will have passed away. All our hardships will be over and done with, and we will glory in God's peace.