"God's Creed"

God's Creed

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 Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).