“Have I not worked, O God?
Have I not toiled and borne?
Sackcloth for secret sin
Have I not worn?
“Have I not dwelt and knelt
In bitterness alone―
Eating my Dead-Sea fruit―
And made no moan?
“Have I not plead for strength
My punishment to bear,
Pressing my heart’s wild cry
Thro’ midnight air?
“Night after night, O God,
Have I not laid me prone,
Brow bent upon the floor―
Yet made no moan?
“The stony way thou gavest
Have I not bravely trod?
Have I breathed one reproach,
O God, O God?
“Hast Thou e’er known my feet
The cruelest thorn to shun?
Have I not bled, and said―
‘Thy will be done’?
“Yea, when the deepest hurt
Festered in my heart’s core,
‘This I deserved,’ I said;
‘All this―and more.’
“In my supremist pain,
Repentance and despair,
My deepest plea has been
For strength to bear.
“Strength to endure my sin
And eat its fruits, and live―
This and the wilder cry
Of ‘Lord, forgive!’
“What more can I do, God,
To win from pain release?
What more, O God, what more
For peace, for peace?”
So prayed the woman. Pale
Was she, and thin and worn,
And hollow-browed and eyed,
And passion-torn.
And―“Child,” God answered her,
“When first thou asked of me―
Truly repenting all―
I forgave thee.
“One more thing thou must have,
And that is Faith. Deplore
Thy sins no longer. Go―
And sin no more.”
“The Simple Creed of Christ” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).