A poem called "One of Seven sins" promises a lecture, and then withholds the one thing a lecture would give: the name of the sin. C.C. Hawthrone leaves the subject as a bare "it" and lets the reader work out what is being described. The details point most strongly to pride. It is the sin that is "scared when humiliated," that will not "beg," and that keeps its secrets. A flicker of envy also runs through the poem, in the question "Does it chase what is theirs?" The poem never settles the matter, and that uncertainty is part of its design. By refusing to label the sin, it makes us look at how the sin behaves.
What it shows is surprising. Most writing about sin gives us a predator, but this "it" is almost pitiable. It "cries out for help" and "raises its hand," like a pupil who needs to be noticed. The poem is also built on a gap between verb and adverb. Crying for help is urgent, yet the next line, "Occasionally," arrives flat and bureaucratic, like a frequency on a form. The same happens with "Predominantly" and "Accidentally." The strangest is the third. "It still asks for the will power / Accidentally." You cannot ask for strength by accident, unless the asking is something the sin lets slip against its own wishes. The sin wants help but cannot admit it, so the request leaks out sideways.
The repeated "still" in the first stanza has two meanings. It can mean "even now, after everything," a stubborn persistence. It can also mean motionless, a hand raised and held in the air. Both readings suit a sin that hangs on and waits. The lines are short and the grammar is plain, so the tension sits in those one-word adverbs, which trail off after the longer lines, drawing out their syllables and leaving each statement oddly diluted. There is no regular rhyme, but "Occasionally" and "Accidentally" share an ending, and "Predominantly" almost does. The result is a faint chime, like a rhyme heard through a wall.
The second stanza changes method. Statements give way to questions, and the poem becomes an interrogation. The answers are as telling as the questions. "Is it scared when humiliated?" gets "It doesn't divulge," the only answer that is a full sentence and the only one that is a refusal. We are told nothing, which could itself be the answer. Then the replies shrink and harden: "Sometimes," then "Never." The escalation moves from secrecy through partial admission to flat denial. "Never" is the last word of the poem, and its two syllables land like a door being shut.
That ending is the key to the poem's central idea. Set the two stanzas side by side and the sin contradicts itself. In the first stanza it cries out and raises its hand. In the second, it "Never" begs. It will signal that it is drowning but will not ask to be pulled out, because asking would mean conceding something. The poem suggests that this is how a sin survives: it needs help and is too proud to say so plainly. The word "theirs" adds to the picture. It is vague about who "they" are, and that vagueness makes the sin feel defined by comparison with other people, watching what they have and hiding how it feels.
The poem is significant because it takes a very old moral category and turns it into psychology. There is no punishment, no sermon and no villain. The sin is shown as a fragile, evasive and rather lonely thing. The poem also trusts its reader, who has to supply the missing name and decide how much sympathy the sin deserves. Its small, plain form helps. A poem this restrained keeps the mystery and the discomfort, and the reader may end up wondering how much of "it" belongs to them.