Forgive me that I hear thy creeds
Unawed and unafraid;
They are too small for one whose ears
Have heard God’s organ played;
Who in wide, noble solitudes,
In simple faith has prayed.
Forgive me that I cannot kneel
And worship in this pew,
For I have knelt in western dawns,
When the stars were large and few,
And the only fonts God gave me were
The deep leaves filled with dew.
And so it is I worship best
With only the soft air
About me, and the sun’s warm gold
Upon my brow and hair;
For then my very heart and soul
Mount upward in swift prayer.
My church has been a yellow space
Ceiled over with blue heaven,
My pew upon a noble hill
Where the fir-trees were seven,
And the stars upon their slender tops
Were tapers lit at even.
My knees have known no cushions rich,
But the soft, emerald sod;
My aisles have been the forest paths
Lined with the crimson-rod;
My choir, the birds and winds and waves―
My only pastor, God.
My steeple has been the dome of snow
From the blue land that swells;
My rosary the acorns small
That drop from bronzéd cells;
And the only bells that summoned me
Were the rhododendron bells.
At Easter, God’s own hand adorned
These dim, sweet, sacred bowers
With the twin-blossom’s delicate vine
And all the West’s rich flowers;
And lest they droop in mellow nights,
He cooled them with light showers.
The crimson salmon-berry bells
And wild violets were here,
And those white, silent stars that shine
Thro’ purple glooms so clear;
And the pure lilies that are meet
For a young virgin’s bier.
Wild-currant blossoms broke and bled,
Even as Mary’s heart;
The gold musk in the marshy spots
Curled tempting lips apart;
And I saw the feathery lupine, too,
Up from the warm earth start.
The clover blossoms, pink and white,
Rimmed round the silver mere;
The thrifty dandelion lit
Her dawn-lamps far and near;
There was one white bloom that thro’ the dusk
Shone liquid, like a tear.
I watched the dawn come up the East,
Lilied and chaste and still;
I felt my heart beat wild and strong,
My veins with white fire thrill;
For it was the Easter dawn―and Christ
Was with me on the hill!
Oh, every little feathered throat
Swelled full with lyric song,
And the ocean played along the shore,
Full, passionate and strong―
An organ grand whose each wave-note
Was sounded sweet and long.
And so it is I worship best
With only the soft air
About me, and the sun’s warm gold
Upon my brow and hair;
For then my very heart and soul
Mount upward in swift prayer.
Forgive me that I hear thy creeds
Unawed and unafraid;
They are too small for one whose ears
Have heard God’s organ played;
Who in vast, noble solitudes
In simple faith has prayed.
“God’s Creed” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).