Pain

Where is this reality?    
All that I see fades away,    
All that I touch withers;    
Yet the pain,
The pain remains,    
The pain is real:     
It comprehends
The counsels of eternity,
And the transactions of time;
It brings a unity
To the changing patterns
That surround us;
I hear the promise,
Yet I bear the performance:
One is favor,
The other is act;
And all in between is pain:
It is an exacting harmony.