Poems (Chitwood)/Lead us not into Temptation

by Mary Louisa Chitwood

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION.

We all have need to breathe the ardent prayer,
 "Lead us not to temptation." All around
Life's way is hedged some gilded. tempting snare.
 And I believe there is some way to sound
Each human heart, and drag up from its sleep
 Some dormant evil: there is o'er some art
Which can awake the echoes, loud and deep,
 Of voices we deemed buried in the heart,
 And gone to ashes. Let no mortal smile,
Or think himself secure: in some dark hour
The tempting fiend may, with his cunning power,
 Elude the heart's firm sentry, and beguile,
With voice of honeyed sweetness, till the sin
 From which we deemed ourselves the most secure,
Is the first one we blindly enter in;
 And thus we fall where footing seemed most sure.
 Let no one boast—no righteous Pharisee
Say "I have trampled sin beneath my feet;"
For not on earth a single heart doth beat
 Exempt from error. Let the tempter call—
Let the right chord of evil be but found,
And it will send its echoes back in sound;
 And the self-boasting be the first to fall.
Be humble, then, O canting hypocrite,
 Tiring the air with long, lip-rooted prayers,
Saying, "I am very holy; let me sit
 Beneath thy smile, good Lord of earth and air;
 I never yet have fallen in the snare;
For the abodes of angels I am fit."
O puny atom! weak and helpless speck
 Of the great universe! thy boasted power,
In hours of trial, fails; thou art a wreck,
Drifting upon the waves; a weed, a flower,
Torn by the winds, dashed by the billows might;
 Slave of its fury! Pray thou, then, to heaven,
With earnest heart, at morn, and noon, and night,
 That strength to tread life's weary way be given;
Lest that thy puny hands may loose their hold,
 And down the rocks, to death, thy feet may slide;
Lest the fiend charm, and thy birthright be sold,
 The bribe be taken. Do not boast till tried
By every charm, and voice, and every art,
 Thought can conceive to win away thy heart.