Emily Dickinson

My Worthiness Is All My Doubt

poem 751

My Worthiness Is All My Doubt - meaning Summary

Humility Before Divine Merit

The speaker meditates on personal unworthiness before a perfectly meritorious deity. Anxiety about proving herself worthy of divine need leads her to humble comparison and self-conformation. She accepts that God stoops to inhabit what is lower, and so shapes her soul into a receptive church, arranging inward life to meet the sacrament. The poem centers on humility, devotion, and the inward work of fitting oneself to receive grace.

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My Worthiness is all my Doubt His Merit all my fear Contrasting which, my quality Do lowlier appear Lest I should insufficient prove For His beloved Need The Chiefest Apprehension Upon my thronging Mind ‘Tis true that Deity to stoop Inherently incline For nothing higher than Itself Itself can rest upon So I the undivine abode Of His Elect Content Conform my Soul as ’twere a Church, Unto Her Sacrament

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