"The Simple Creed of Christ"

The Simple Creed of Christ

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