Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/407

 TIME DISCOVERING TRUTH 397

Where art thou, first-born child of mine ? Why dost thou hide and make no sign ?

In the silence of the night

Thou art present to my sight ;

In each age I hear thee speak,

But, when I haste thy form to seek,

The voice is hushed and thou art fled,

And old dame Prejudice, instead,

To meet me comes with limping pace,

And mocks me with her loathed embrace

O'er and o'er deluded, yet

Thee I never can forget.

Where thou art I cannot tell.

But one thing I know full well :

So woven art thou with my heart.

That of myself thou seemest part.

And, till my lost one I can find,

I must roam like one that's blind.

O, speak and answer ! Dost survive ?

My daughter, art thou still alive ?

Or am I seeking for a sound,

Not for a thing that may be found ?

I cannot tell, yet long ago

I should have dropped the search, I know,

Save that 'tis written in the past.

Time shall discover Truth at last.

My throat is dry with calling thee ; Would that some fountain I might see I Yet now, methinks, I seem to hear A spring or streamlet bubbling near. Ah, here's a well ; I'll down and drink, And leave my scythe upon the brink; Yet first I'll cover it with grass.

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