A Creed

I read the following poem tonight and I decided I need to start living my creed no matter what else I do, I have to live my creed to God, my country and to mankind.

A Creed  I HOLD that when a person dies  His soul returns again to earth;  Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise  Another mother gives him birth.  With sturdier limbs and brighter brain  The old soul takes the road again.  Such is my own belief and trust;  This hand, this hand that holds the pen,  Has many a hundred times been dust  And turned, as dust, to dust again;  These eyes of mine have blinked and shown  In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.  All that I rightly think or do,  Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,  Is curse or blessing justly due  For sloth or effort in the past.  My life's a statement of the sum  Of vice indulged, or overcome.  I know that in my lives to be  My sorry heart will ache and burn,  And worship, unavailingly,  The woman whom I used to spurn,  And shake to see another have  The love I spurned, the love she gave.  And I shall know, in angry words,  In gibes, and mocks, and many a tear,  A carrion flock of homing-birds,  The gibes and scorns I uttered here.  The brave word that I failed to speak  Will brand me dastard on the cheek.  And as I wander on the roads  I shall be helped and healed and blessed;  Dear words shall cheer and be as goads  To urge to heights before unguessed.  My road shall be the road I made;  All that I gave shall be repaid.  So shall I fight, so shall I tread,  In this long war beneath the stars;  So shall a glory wreathe my head,  So shall I faint and show the scars,  Until this case, this clogging mould,  Be smithied all to kingly gold.  John Masefield  More poems from John Masefield