C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Louise Betts Edwards
My Shadow
I
Its secret depths one secret sin.
I stamped the earth upon it well;
I left no trace, the tale to tell.
Then from the darksome place I fled,
And turned my face to God and said:—
Hereafter to thy will I bow.
This sin must be—I cannot save
My soul from it, so dig this grave.
But there, O God, it hidden lies;
And I will gird my loins, and rise,
Go to my Father, and declare
That from this day his yoke I bear.
Straitly thy law I will obey,
Unswerving walk in Virtue’s way,
Till thou forget that it hath been,—
This buried, unrepented sin.
Deliberate sin, be quite undone?
Shall God forever hide his face,
His mercy hold for me no place?
May I not far behind me cast
Those things I buried in the Past,
And, reaching out to those before,
Serve thee with faithful heart the more?”
Upright I walk among my peers.
Honors and riches have I borne;
Plenty hath blest me with her horn.
With zeal untired my feet have trod
The blessed path that leads to God.
But sometimes beckoning Memory lifts
Her darkening veil, and all the gifts
That Fortune in my way hath placed
Are dust and ashes to my taste.
Out of the Past there steals anear
That sin, and whispers, “I am here!
Thou laidest me in ground that bears
No hallowing of repentant prayers.
No ghost can lie in grave unblest;
For thee and me there is no rest.
Thy works, thy faith, cannot avail:
My shadow follows in thy trail.
Between thy sacrifice and thee
Shall ever rise the thought of me!”
Why should despair torment me so?
Yea, I shall smile, when morning breaks,
At fears with which my heart now quakes.
Its secret depths one secret sin.
I closed the grave—and know full well
That day I shut myself in hell!