Lost as I am — degraded, foul, polluted,
Sunk in deep sloughs of failure and of sin,
Yet is my hell by God's great grace commuted,
For what I lose the others yet may win.
I — sport of flesh and fate — in all my living
Met the world's laughter and the Christian's frown,
Ever the spirit fiercely vainly striving,
Ever the flesh, triumphant, laughed it down.
Down, lower still, but ever battling vainly,
Dying to win, yet living to be lost,
My soul through depths where all its guilt showed plainly
Into the chaos of despair was tossed.
Yet not despair. I see far off a splendour;
Here from my hell I see a heaven on high
For those brave men whom earth could never render
Cowards as foul and beasts as base as I!
Hell is not hell lit by such consolation,
Heaven were not heaven that lacked a thought like this —
That, though my soul may never see salvation,
God yet saves all these other souls of His!
The waves of death come faster, faster, faster;
Christ, ere I perish, hear my heart's last word —
It was not I denied my Lord and Master;
The flesh denied Thee, not the spirit, Lord.
And God be praised that other men are wearing
The white, white flower I trampled as I trod;
That all fail not, that all are not despairing,
That all are not as I, I thank Thee, God!