Truth

Truth

A rock for ages stern and high,
Stood frowning 'gainst the earth and sky;
And never bowed his haughty crest,
When angry storms around him prest.


Morn springing from the arms of night,
Had often bathed his brow with light;
And kissed the shadows from his face,
With gentle love and tender grace.


Day pausing at the gates of rest,
Smiled on him from the distant west;
And from her throne the dark browned night
Threw round his path her softest light.


And yet he stood unmoved and proud,
Nor love, nor wrath his spirit bowed--
He bared his brow to every blast,
And scorned the tempest as it passed.


One day a tiny, humble seed,
The quickest eye would hardly heed,
Fell trembling at that stern rock's base,
And found a lowly hiding-place.


A ray of light and drop of dew,
Came with a message kind and true--
They told her of the world so bright,
Its love, its joy, and rosy light;


And lured her from her hiding-place,
To gaze upon earth's glorious face;
So peeping timid from the ground,
She clasped the ancient rock around;


And climbing up with childish grace,
She held him with a close embrace--
Her clinging was a thing of dread,
Where'er she touched a fissure spread;


And he who'd breasted many a storm,
Stood frowning there a mangled form;
So truth dropped in the silent earth,
May seem a thing of little worth--
Till spreading round some mighty wrong,
It saps its pilllars proud and strong.

Francis Ellen Watkins (Frances Ellen Watkins Harper)

2:3, pp. 87-8

1860.02