"The Guests of the Heart"

The Guests of the Heart

Said Faith, “I’ve made you a visit,

         But now I must go.”

She went with reluctant glances

         And footsteps slow.

She met at the very threshold

         Pale entering Doubt;

“Are you coming in,” she said,

         “As I go out?”

“We cannot visit together,”

         Doubt made reply;

“The heart that bids me enter,

         Bids you good by.”

A draft of "The Guests of the Heart" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA.

"The Guests of the Heart" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).

"The Guests of the Heart" as it appears in Ella Higginson: A Tribute (1941) printed in Bellingham under the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs.