My Creed
Now, this is the simple, living faith of a humble heart and mind,
Drunk up from the storm-brewed Western streams, breathed in
with the prairie wind.
My paints are crude and my pictures rude, but if some worth
they show
Which those may see who have thoughts as free, the rest may
let them go.
I hold that the things which make earth good may work most
harm in use
If the wit of men heed not the line ’twixt temperance and abuse,
For speech or mood, or drink or food may be a curse at will,
Though, rightly weighed, they only aid the cup of life to fill.
I hold that the silent sea and plain, the mountain, wood, and
down.
Are better haunts for the feet of men than the streets of the
roaring town,
And that those who tread for the price of bread in the thronging
hives of toil
Will stronger grow with the more they know of the kiss of the
virgin soil.
I hold that our sons should learn to love, not gods of gold and
greed,
But the virile men of brain and brawn who served our country’s
need,
And should more delight in a clean-cut fight, stout blade and
courage whole,
That the morbid skill of a critic’s drill in the core of a sin-sick
soul.
Three stars that shine on the trail of life can make man’s
pathway bright,
And one is the strength of the living God, that stands in his
heart upright,
And one is a noble woman’s love, on which his heart may lean,
And one is the sight of his country’s flag, to keep his courage
keen.
Who knows the balm of the summer’s calm or the chords of the
blizzard’s hymn
And finds not God in blast and breeze, his sense is strangely dim.
For he whose ear is attuned can hear the very planets sing
That the soul of man, by a God-wrought plan, is the heir of
creation’s King.
Who feels the joy of the golden days with her who shares his
mood
In the sun-washed wastes of the prairie hills or the breaks of
the tangled wood;
Who has won the fate of a steel-true mate, real comrade, friend
and wife,
He tastes the kiss of Elysian bliss in instant, earthly life.
Who sees the gleam of the Stars and Stripes, on land or sea
displayed,
Atilt in the reek of the battle-smoke or aloft o’er the marts of
trade—
Unless his veins are the sluggish drains for the blood of a craven race.—
He will gain new life for a better strife, whatever the odds he
face.
So that is the rede and the homely creed of one who has spelled
it forth
In the rivers’ sweep and the splendors deep of the stars of the
hardy North;
To some, I ween, it may seem but mean; too short, too blunt, too plain,
But if those I touch who have felt as much, it will not have been
in vain.