Doubt

Doubt

Original Text
Helen Jackson, Poems (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892), p. 141. PS 2107 P6 1892 ROBA
1  They bade me cast the thing away,
2They pointed to my hands all bleeding,
3They listened not to all my pleading;
4  The thing I meant I could not say;
5  I knew that I should rue the day
6  If once I cast that thing away.
7  I grasped it firm, and bore the pain;
8The thorny husks I stripped and scattered;
9If I could reach its heart, what mattered
10  If other men saw not my gain,
11  Or even if I should be slain?
12  I knew the risks; I chose the pain.
13  O, had I cast that thing away,
14I had not found what most I cherish,
15A faith without which I should perish,--
16  The faith which, like a kernel, lay
17  Hid in the husks which on that day
18  My instinct would not throw away!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.