Types of the volume where all secrets lie,
Who hath not made ye confidants of woe?
Whom have ye cheer’d not, beckoning from on high,
Watched at their birth, and flash’d on death your glow?
Witnesses to my woes, my thoughts, my sins,
Attest, that sometimes I have conquered grief;
If I have known what loss fulfilment wins,
And yet striven on, then yield me some relief:
Thou, blue escutcheon, on which worlds have painted
The symbol, truth, hard for poor man to read;
If I have lonely storm’d content, nor fainted,
Nourish some flower from this uncertain seed:
Though great my sins, not less my griefs have been,
Bear witness, Truth, high arbitress and queen.