How We Learn

Great truths are dearly bought. The common truth,
Such as men give and take from day to day,
Comes in the common walks of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across our way.

Bought in the market, at the current price,
Bred of the smile, the jest, perchance the bowl,
It tells no tale of daring or of worth,
Nor pierces even the surface of a soul.

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 buffeting with adverse wind and stream.

Not in the general mart, 'mid corn and wine,
Not in the merchandise of gold and gems,
Not in the world's gay halls of midnight mirth,
Not 'mid the blaze of regal diadems.

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.