Lest Any Truth Be Lost

By Jane H. Merchant

If I should wound you, speaking what I hold
As truth in needlessly emphatic terms,
Expressing with a tongue too bluntly bold
For grace conviction that my heart affirms,
Believe me, it is but my eagerness
To add to universal truth the grain
Of inward certitude which I possess
Through well-authenticated joy and pain,
For I am well aware no word of mine
Is all of truth, for truth is various
As individual hearts that must divine
Their own, and utter it with scrupulous
Swift zeal, aware of the exceeding cost
Should any particle of truth be lost.

(1955)