Poems (Jackson)/Truth

by Helen Hunt Jackson

For works with similar titles, see Truth.

TRUTH.

TRUTH, art thou relentless? Wilt thou restNever? From solitude to solitudeEternally wilt thou escape? Thy goodAnd beauty luring us to fatal quest,Foredoomed to endless loss?

Foredoomed to endless loss?O royal guestOf Nature's centuries, no spot so rude,So void, thy secret cannot there eludeOur grasp; no thing too subtle to attestHer royal sheltering; from spheres to spheresOf light, through the incalculable years;From force to force, through rock, through sound, through flame,Our worship wrests but echo of thy name,And builds at last, with patient stone, and sod,And tears, its altar "to the unknown God."