The Goal
| The Goal by |
| From Poems of Experience (1917) |
All roads that lead to God are good;
What matters it, your faith, or mine;
Both centre at the goal divine
Of love’s eternal Brotherhood.
The kindly life in house or street;
The life of prayer, and mystic rite;
The student’s search for truth and light;
These paths at one great junction meet.
Before the oldest book was writ,
Full many a prehistoric soul
Arrived at this unchanging goal,
Through changeless love, that led to it.
What matters that one found his Christ
In rising sun, or burning fire;
If faith within him did not tire,
His longing for the truth sufficed.
Before our ‘Christian’ hell was brought
To edify a modern world,
Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled
In lakes of fire by its own thought.
A thousand creeds have come and gone;
But what is that to you or me?
Creeds are but branches of a tree,
The root of love lives on and on.
Though branch by branch proves withered wood,
The root is warm with precious wine;
Then keep your faith, and leave me mine;
All roads that lead to God are good.
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This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923.
The author died in 1919, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. |
