A CREED

 

A CREED

“A Creed” is a very short poem  written by the popular American poet Edwin Markham (1852---940). He became internationally famous as the author of another poem “The Man with the Hoe.”    

The text of A Creed reads as follows:

THERE is a destiny that makes us bothers;

None goes his way alone;

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

 

I care not what his temples or his creeds,

One thing holds firm and fast----

That into his fateful heap of days and deeds

The soul of man is cast.

 

            The word ‘creed ‘ is defined as a set of principles or a system of beliefs, which in the under- or un-enlightened minds takes the shape of a dogma or a rigid article of faith.  It then becomes divisive and exclusive; and tends to encourage differences rather than similarities.  This transformation , in its own, generates hazardous  separatism. Edwin Markham does not support such a narrow creed. He boldly says: “I care not what his  temples or his deeds are” because there is a destiny which makes all of us ‘brothers’. He  thus lays emphasis on the unity of mankind. According to him, though people act individually, they are not independent of each other. “None goes his way alone’ and  “All that we send into the lives of others/Comes back into our own. “ There is thus a God-ordained co-operation among the followers of  different creeds and specific places of worship.

 

            In modern parlance, let us not interpret the poem as a plea for secularism.  It  is much more than that. According to Markham : “One thing holds firm and fast---That into his  fateful heap of days and deeds/The soul of man is cast. “ The word ‘soul’ here implies the animating principle created by the Supreme God.  It is due to this very principle  that  we feel the unity of mankind and the Unity of God Himself.

 

            Before I conclude, let  us see  the following words of  Rabindranath Tagore from his book The Religion of Man (Unwin Brothers Ltd., Great Britain, 1931): “…on the surface of our being we have the ever-changing phases of the individual self, but in  the depth, there dwells the Eternal Spirit of human unity beyond our direct knowledge. It very often contradicts the trivialities of our daily life, and upsets the arrangements made for securing our personal exclusiveness behind the walls of individual habits and superfluous conventions.”   

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22 July 2021                                                                            G.R.Kanwal