Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ODE TO TRUTH, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ODE TO TRUTH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Thou proud-eyed queen of noble souls
Last Line: Or be I shielded by the grave.
Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta
Subject(s): Truth


THOU proud-eyed queen of noble souls,
Who sittest lily-crowned,
And seest how the small world rolls,
In its own woe-waves drowned,
Heeds its own humming, has no ear
To tune its voice to thine more clear,
Its measures, as they sound,
Ring ever falser to thy key,
Till thine discordant seems to be.

Oh! raise thy saddened voice more high,
Till the whole life-crowd hears
Thy sweet, stern godlike melody,
Whose echoes ring through years.
Flash out from Custom's shrouding veil,
And bid who love thee not grow pale,
And bow them down in tears,
And in thy beauty know thy strength,
Thou, sovereign of their lives at length.

Flash out, for all has grown untrue,
And they, who love thee best,
Seek darkling what things they should do;
Seek doubting and distrest;
Unknowing who are feal to thee,
Scarce knowing what themselves may be;
And falsehood and unrest
With flickering wildfires vex their gaze,
And cloud their ways with baleful haze.

Flash from the Veil, lest it be found
Thy deathful winding sheet,
The veil that humble Eld first bound
Around thy worshipped feet,
That, widening with the years, now holds
Thee prisoned in its mazy folds,
In bondage most unmeet;
And, were thy radiance but less bright,
Would dark thee wholly to our sight.

Lo! Custom should not be thy lord,
But thy subservient slave,
The harmony set to thy word,
The love-drawn trembling wave,
To follow forth thy moonlike wake,
Albeit for the following's sake
The breasting rocks it brave;
Or the fair form that holds enshrined
A holy, pure, directing mind.

Ah! it were well if this world's laws,
By which our earth-steps move,
Had thy commanding will for cause,
Thou who art one with love,
With wisdom one, if not triune,
Yet modulations of one tune:
Wildly their fancies rove,
Who read unwisdom in thine eye,
Or link thee with discourtesy.

Oh! light of heaven, most proudly fair,
Be thou my fateful star
To shape my life, and let me dare--
Though thou shouldst bode me war,
World war with which I could not cope,--
Construct on thee my horoscope;
Thou, with thy pure rays, bar
Out from my soul the cankering rust,
Strewed by deceit and pale distrust.

They, the corrupting fiends that prey
Upon the heart's best blood,
And in its faintness steal away
The last belief in good;
The last sweet hope of good on earth,
The last kind hope of its own worth,
That iris-trembling stood,
And cheered it from unholy woe--
Oh! their hard might let me not know.

Hear, lily-crowned, how from the dust
Lowly to thee I cry,
Oh! give me truth and give me trust,
Still give, or let me die,
I would not tremble in thy way ;
Ah! should I tremble, send a ray,
Thy message from on high,
And keep me strong and keep me brave,
Or be I shielded by the grave.








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