The Truth is Rarely Pure and Never
Simple – modern Life would be very
Tedious if it were either, and modern
Literature: a Complete Impossibility²
Truth-Tellers aren’t always palatable:
There is a Preference for Candy Bars³
One must strain off what is Personal &
Accidental in each Impression to reach
The Pure fluid: the Essential oil of Truth⁴
Thou art so True that thoughts of thee suffice
To make Dreams Truths – and Fables Histories⁵
An Ounce of Truth benefits as Ripples on a Pond⁶
One voice speaking the Truth is a Greater
Force than Fleets & Armies – given time⁷
There’s Triumph of the finer mind when
Truth, affronted long – advances calm to
Her Supreme, her God her only Throng⁸
In dealing with Truth – we’re Immortal⁹
Truth can Never be Told so as to be
Understood and Not be Believ’d¹⁰
¹ Sophocles tr. Theodore Howard Banks, Oedipus the King
² Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
³ Gwendolyn Brooks, Song for Winnie
⁴ Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
⁵ John Donne, The Dream
⁶ Nikki Giovanni, [Untitled]: (For Margaret Danner)
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
⁸ Emily Dickinson, I Died for Beauty
⁹ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
¹⁰ William Blake, Proverbs of Hell