 | The Poems of John Clare |  |
110
SLANDER (II)
It feeds on falsehood and on clamour lives,And Truth, like sunshine, dims its watering eyes;
It cannot bear the searching light she gives,
But in her splendour struggles, writhes, and lies
A crushed and wounded worm, that vainly turns
All ways for rest and ease, yet findeth none.
Of its own venom-breath it wastes and burns
Away, like putrid waters in the sun.
It stains, as footmarks in a frosty morn,
Left on the bruising grass by early swain;
Truth's spring soon comes, and laughs them all to scorn;
Stains disappear—the grass is green again;
And hearts that feed the falsehood Slander brings
Are all that feel at last the venom of its stings.
| The Poems of John Clare | |