Truths

THE time is racked with birth-pangs; every hourBrings forth some gasping truth, and truth newbornLooks a misshapen and untimely growth,The terror of the household and its shame,A monster coiling in its nurse's lapThat 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 armsThat cast it like a serpent from their hold!

If thou wouldst live in honor, die in peace,Have the fine words the marble-workers learnTo carve so well, upon thy funeral-stone,And earn a fair obituary, dressedIn all the many-colored robes of praise,Be deafer than the adder to the cryOf that same foundling truth, until it growsTo seemly favor, and at length has wonThe 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 lastIt drops its mortal vesture, and, revealedIn all the splendor of its heavenly form,Spreads on the startled air its mighty wings!

Alas! how much that seemed immortal truthThat heroes fought for, martyrs died to save,Reveals its earth-born lineage, growing oldAnd 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 eyesThat 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 timeMight leave the frame immortal in its tomb;Filled it with fragrant balms and odorous gumsThat still diffuse their sweetness through the air,And wound and wound with patient fold on foldThe flaxen bands thy hand has rudely torn!Perchance thou yet canst see the faded stainOf the sad mourner's tear.