Poems of Nature, Poems Subjective and Reminiscent and Religious Poems, Complete

UTTERANCE.

     But what avail inadequate words to reach
     The innermost of Truth? Who shall essay,
     Blinded and weak, to point and lead the way,
     Or solve the mystery in familiar speech?
     Yet, if it be that something not thy own,
     Some shadow of the Thought to which our schemes,
     Creeds, cult, and ritual are at best but dreams,
     Is even to thy unworthiness made known,
     Thou mayst not hide what yet thou shouldst not dare
     To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine
     The real seem false, the beauty undivine.
     So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer,
     Give what seems given thee. It may prove a seed
     Of goodness dropped in fallow-grounds of need.

     1881.