TRUTHS

THE time is racked with birth-pangs; every hour Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth newborn Looks a misshapen and untimely growth, The terror of the household and its shame,

A monster coiling in its nurse's lap That some would strangle, some would only starve; But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts,

Comes slowly to its stature and its form, Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales, Changes to shining locks its snaky hair, And moves transfigured into angel guise,

Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth, And folded in the same encircling arms That cast it like a serpent from their hold! If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace,

Have the fine words the marble-workers learn To carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone, And earn a fair obituary, dressed In all the many-colored robes of praise,

Be deafer than the adder to the cry Of that same foundling truth, until it grows To seemly favor, and at length has won The smiles of hard-mouthed men and light-lipped dames;

Then snatch it from its meagre nurse's breast, Fold it in silk and give it food from gold; So shalt thou share its glory when at last It drops its mortal vesture, and, revealed

In all the splendor of its heavenly form, Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings! Alas! how much that seemed immortal truth That heroes fought for, martyrs died to save,

Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing old And limping in its march, its wings unplumed, Its heavenly semblance faded like a dream! Here in this painted casket, just unsealed,

Lies what was once a breathing shape like thine, Once loved as thou art loved; there beamed the eyes That looked on Memphis in its hour of pride, That saw the walls of hundred-gated Thebes,

And all the mirrored glories of the Nile. See how they toiled that all-consuming time Might leave the frame immortal in its tomb; Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gums

That still diffuse their sweetness through the air, And wound and wound with patient fold on fold The flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn! Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stain

Of the sad mourner's tear.