C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Sarah Knowles Bolton (1841–1916)

SHE stood before a chosen few,

With modest air and eyes of blue;

A gentle creature, in whose face

Were mingled tenderness and grace.

“You wish to join our fold,” they said:

“Do you believe in all that’s read

From ritual and written creed,

Essential to our human need?”

A troubled look was in her eyes;

She answered, as in vague surprise,

As though the sense to her were dim,

“I only strive to follow Him.”

They knew her life; how, oft she stood,

Sweet in her guileless maidenhood,

By dying bed, in hovel lone,

Whose sorrow she had made her own.

Oft had her voice in prayer been heard,

Sweet as the voice of singing bird;

Her hand been open in distress;

Her joy to brighten and to bless.

Yet still she answered, when they sought

To know her inmost earnest thought,

With look as of the seraphim,

“I only strive to follow Him.”

Creeds change as ages come and go;

We see by faith, but little know:

Perchance the sense was not so dim

To her who “strove to follow Him.”