Go and Tell Him His Fault

I once offended deep a worthy brother.
He did not tell me where my trespass lay,
But left me lonely in my guilt to simmer.
I do not know just what I did today.

Perhaps it was with years of careless sinning
My conscience did not feel it as it should.
Disgusted or too hurt to stoop to winning,
He would not pierce its hardness if he could.

Perhaps he thought, “If time does not reveal it,
My words can never make him feel the blame.
By silence I shall make his conscience feel it”—
And so he never wrote or never came.

So thought Nathan, and the months departing
Passed into years o’er David’s guilty head.
The prophet mute, with indignation smarting,
Those words of accusation never said:

“Thou art the man”—so David’s soul just drifted
Farther and farther as the years went by;
The burden of his sin nor felt, nor lifted,
Nor sounded from his lips that anguished cry,

That psalm of psalms, the contrite heart expressing.
The silence of the prophet never stirred
One conscience-qualm. No guilt his soul confessing,
The Lord’s blest words of pardon were not heard.

Not so! The prophet told his touching story.
He then with faithful words applied the same,
And David bowed: he gave the Lord the glory,
Acknowledged all his sin, his guilt and shame.

And so it is, if you would draw a brother
Back from the drifting tide towards the shore,
Go tell him of his fault—not tell another:
A precious soul you may indeed restore.

When storms of life and clouds of time have lifted,
And morn reveals the wreckage of the wave,
If ocean yielded back one soul that drifted,
You’ll not regret you sought that one to save.

E.O.H.

Note: Poetry runs in the Hewlett family. This is my favourite poem of my grandfather's.