I found this poem among the poems in the poetry workshop that I took. No author given, just a rather cryptic N.Y.T and a date 10/14/61 at the top of the page, only to be contradicted by October 23, 1961 at the bottom. 

Does the N.Y.T. stand for the New York Times? 

I searched the web, and even the Times’s site and couldn’t find the source or author of the poem.

Does anybody have a clue as to who wrote this?

THE LIE

Only a few it touched at first
Believed the lie to be accurst,
   Felt the sly rot
   Of what was not.

And even they said, “Let it go,
Never another needs to know;
   If it happens again
   We’ll stop it then.”

Only a drop or so of ink
Was spent in making all men think
   Their very eyes
   Saw otherwise.

This drop of ink, in seven days,
Had darkened all the seven seas— 
   “Not very much,”
   Men cried, “a mere touch.”

But no man’s patience and devotion
Analyzed any piece of ocean,
   Which rolled on shore
   Darker than before.

The ocean and the ink together,
The lie become part of the weather,
   Indelibly meant
   And permanent.