Read "Simple Creeds" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
If this were our creed it were creed enough / To keep us thoughtful and make us brave; / On this sad journey o'er pathways rough / That lead us steadily on to the grave.
_Speak no evil_, _and cause no ache_, / _Utter no jest that can pain awake_; / _Guard your actions and bridle your tongue_, / _Words are adders when hearts are stung_.
If this were our aim, it were all, in sooth, / That any soul needs, to climb to heaven, / And we would not cumber the way of truth / With dreary dogmas, or rites priest given.
_Help whoever_, _whenever you can_, / _Man for ever needs aid from man_. / _Let never a day die in the West_, / _That you have not comforted some sad heart_.
Were this our belief we need not brood / O'er intricate _isms_ and modes of faith -- / For this embodies the highest goal / For the life we are living, or after death.
_We meet no trials we do not need_; / _Well borne sorrow is holy seed_; / _It shall rise in a harvest of golden grain_, / _And a wise soul ever thanks God for pain_.