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.
Rhyme