Not that the earth is changing, O my God! <br />Nor that the seasons totter in their walk,— <br />Not that the virulent ill of act and talk <br />Seethes ever as a winepress ever trod,— <br />Not therefore are we certain that the rod <br />Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now <br />Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, <br />So many kings:—not therefore, O my God!— <br />But because Man is parcelled out in men <br />To-day; because, for any wrongful blow <br />No man not stricken asks, “I would be told <br />Why thou dost thus;” but his heart whispers then, <br />“He is he, I am I.” By this we know <br />That our earth falls asunder, being old.<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-refusal-of-aid-between-nations/
