Poem: “God Loves the Shabby Hero and Forlorn”

By Amos Wilder

God loves the shabby hero and forlorn,
Sainthood in rags, and courage without means,
Grace in disgrace, royalty stable-born.
And history disguised in common scenes;
God loves humiliation and reproach
Since Christ made every ignominy dear,
And Cinderella in her golden coach
Is not so graced as in her lowlier sphere.
God loves the poor man’s riches ridiculed,
The flower in the tenement, the marred
And all pathetic gesture overruled,
The offering checked, the eagerness debarred;
God loves the furred hepatica that blows
Credulous in the latter winter snows.

“God loves the shabby hero and forlorn” from The Healing of the Waters by Amos Wilder. Copyright © 1943 Wilder Family LLC.Reprinted with permission of the Wilder family.