What Shall It Profit?
William Dean Howells
If I lay waste and wither up with doubt
The blessed fields of heaven where once my faith
Possessed itself serenely safe from death;
If I deny the things past finding out;
Or if I orphan my own soul of One
That seemed a Father, and make void the place
Within me where He dwelt in power and grace,
What do I gain by that I have undone?
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One response to “What Shall It Profit? by William Dean Howells”
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No one really chooses to doubt, nor does the lack of profit in doubt as opposed to faith play any role in the doubting heart. This poem can be read as a very subtle form of law, unless it is understood as an agonized cry of one whose faith has already been lost, and hope of any answers, profitable or otherwise, has vanished.