Faith
There is a faith that weakly dies
When overcast by clouds of doubt,
That like a blazing wisp of straw
A vagrant breeze will flicker out.
Be mine the faith whose living flame
Shall pierce the clouds and banish night,
Whose glow the hurricanes increase
To match the gleams of heaven’s night.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 30, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Faith” was originally published in American Indian Magazine, no. 4, 2 (October-December 1916).
Arthur Caswell Parker
Arthur Caswell Parker was born in 1881 on the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York. He published under his Seneca name Gawasa Wanneh or Alnoba Wabunaki, and in 1911 was one of the founders of the Society of American Indians, where he served as secretary and president. From 1925 until 1946, he worked as director of the Rochester Museum. He died in 1955.