Frances E.W. Harper, "Truth" (1896)
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-browed 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 pillars proud and strong.
Published in Frances E.W. Harper's Poems, 1896
Also published in Colored American Magazine, May 1903