Classic Poem

Sometimes I shut the door on all the world
And go alone to that most secret place
Where there is only God—
Just God and I, then
Together we go over subtle acts
Mistakes, and small hypocrisies of mine,
I strip myself from shame, from shackles free,
And stand aghast at my duplicity.

We look, just God and I, into my heart,
And tho' I shrink, we gaze there to the depth;
And though I tremble, shamed by what we find
I suffer, too, a kind of painful joy.

And while I often find it hard to bear
The burning of God's knowing eyes on me
I feel me stronger grown, just from their gaze;
My nakedness, it seems to me, is clothed
In rainment new that is most wondrous fair,
When next I venture forth, I wear
Sincerity, the gift that God in secret gave to me.