Great Truths

 

"Great truths are dearly bought, the common truths,

Such as men give and take from day to day,

Come in the common walk of easy life,

Blown by the careless wind across our way.

 

Great truths are greatly won, not found by chance,

Nor wafted on the breath of summer dream;

But grasped in the great struggle of the soul,

Hard buffeted with adverse wind and steam.

 

But in the day of conflict, fear and grief,

When the strong hand of God, put forth in might,

Plows up the subsoil of the stagnant heart,

And brings the imprisoned truth-seed to the light.

 

Wrung from the troubled spirit, in hard hours

Of weakness, solitude, perchance of pain,

Truth springs like harvest from the well-plowed field,

And the soul feels it has not wept in vain."

 

from Streams in the Desert