Starved Rock

by Edgar Lee Masters

MOURNIN' FOR RELIGION

Brothers and sisters, I'm mournin' for religion,

But I can't get religion, it's my woman interferin'.

I sing and I pray, and I'm real perseverin',

But I can't get religion,

That's all I have to say.

I know there is a fountain, a Jesus, a comforter,

A heaven, a Jerusalem, a day of Pentecost,

Salvation for the wishin', blood for sin's remission,

A covenant, a promise for souls that are lost.

But I can't get religion, the salvation feelin',

The vision of the Lamb, forgiveness and healin'.

I have a sort of numbness

When I see the mourners kneelin'.

I have a kind of dumbness

When the preacher is appealin'.

I have a kind of wariness, even contrariness,

Even while I'm fearin'

The bottomless pit and the shut gates of heaven.

It's my woman interferin'—

For you see when they say:

Come to the mercy seat, come, come,

The spirit and the bride

Say come, come,

I think of my woman who bore so many children;

I think of her a cookin' for harvesters in summer;

I think of her a lyin' there, a dyin' there, the neighbors

Who came in to fan her and how she never murmured;

And then I seem to grow number and number,

And something in me says:

Why didn't Jesus help her for to die,

Why did Jesus always pass her by,

Let her break her health down as I was growing poorer,

Let her lie and suffer with no medicine to cure her,

I wouldn't treat a stray dog as Jesus acted to her.

If these are devil words, I'm a child of the devil.

And this is why I'm dumb

As the spirit and the bride say come!

*****

I am old and crippled—sixty in December.

And I wonder if it's God that stretches out and hands us

Troubles we remember?

I'm alone besides, I need the Comforter,

All the children's grown up, livin' out in Kansas.

My old friend Billy died of lung fever....

But the worst of it is I'm really a believer,

Expect to go to hell if I don't get religion.

And I need this religion to stop this awful grievin'

About my woman lyin' there in the cemetery,

And you can't stop that grievin' simply by believin'.

So I mourn for religion,

I mourn for religion,

My old heart breaks for religion!

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