Truth by Thomas Ashe

If I were purer and more spiritual,
With less alloy of base and earthly mould,
I might a little find out truth, and fall
A musing nobly, and grow noble soul’d.
If truth lay hid, like coral, in the sea,
Then I should have it, swiftly diving down;
Or if red driftweed shrouded it from me
On shallow sand banks seaward, ribb’d and brown,
I would swim out and find it. If the spray
Of rude waves lash’d it on the cliffs, right soon,
Along the nest-spread ledges, wet and grey,
I would descend, and grasp the dangerous boon.
But truth is hid, O truth is hid, somewhere;
In heaven, with God: and that is my despair.

From: Ashe, T., Poems, 1871, H. Knights: Ipswich, pp. 96-97.
(http://books.google.com.au/books?id=XdAIAAAAQAAJ)

Date: 1861

By: Thomas Ashe (1836-1889)