Verses on Various Occasions - John Henry Newman (best beach reads txt) 📗

none at hand of higher grace
The Cross to carry in his place.

But if he hears and sits him still,
First, he will lose his hate of ill;
Next, fear of sinning, after hate;
Small sins his heart then desecrate;
And last, despair persuades to great.

Off Ithaca. December 30, 1832.

LIV The Death of Moses

My Father’s hope! my childhood’s dream!
The promise from on high!
Long waited for! its glories beam
Now when my death is nigh.

My death is come, but not decay;
Nor eye nor mind is dim;
The keenness of youth’s vigorous day
Thrills in each nerve and limb.

Blest scene! thrice welcome after toil⁠—
If no deceit I view;
O might my lips but press the soil,
And prove the vision true!

Its glorious heights, its wealthy plains,
Its many-tinted groves,
They call! but He my steps restrains
Who chastens whom He loves.

Ah! now they melt⁠ ⁠… they are but shades⁠ ⁠…
I die!⁠—yet is no rest,
O Lord! in store, since Canaan fades
But seen, and not possest?

Off Ithaca. December 30, 1832.

LV Melchizedek

“Without father, without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.”

Thrice bless’d are they, who feel their loneliness;
To whom nor voice of friends nor pleasant scene
Brings aught on which the sadden’d heart can lean;
Yea, the rich earth, garb’d in her daintiest dress
Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress,
Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high;
Till, sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly,
Seeking His Presence, who alone can bless.
Such, in strange days, the weapons of Heaven’s grace;
When, passing o’er the high-born Hebrew line,
He moulds the vessel of His vast design;
Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place,
Sever’d from earth, and careless of its wreck,
Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.

Corfu. January 5, 1833.

LVI Corcyra

I sat beneath an olive’s branches grey,
And gazed upon the sight of a lost town,
By sage and poet raised to long renown;
Where dwelt a race that on the sea held sway,
And, restless as its waters, forced a way
For civil strife a hundred states to drown.
That multitudinous stream we now note down
As though one life, in birth and in decay.
But is their being’s history spent and run,
Whose spirits live in awful singleness,
Each in its self-form’d sphere of light or gloom?
Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done,
Such reverence on me shall its seal impress
As though I corpses saw, and walk’d the tomb.

At Sea. January 7, 1833.

LVII Transfiguration

“They glorified God in me.”

I saw thee once and nought discern’d
For stranger to admire;
A serious aspect, but it burn’d
With no unearthly fire.

Again I saw, and I confess’d
Thy speech was rare and high;
And yet it vex’d my burden’d breast,
And scared, I knew not why.

I saw once more, and awe-struck gazed
On face, and form, and air;
God’s living glory round thee blazed⁠—
A Saint⁠—a Saint was there!

Off Zante. January 8, 1833.

LVIII Behind the Veil

Banish’d the House of sacred rest,
Amid a thoughtless throng,
At length I heard its creed confess’d,
And knelt the saints among.

Artless his strain and unadorn’d,
Who spoke Christ’s message there;
But what at home I might have scorn’d,
Now charm’d my famish’d ear.

Lord, grant me this abiding grace,
Thy Word and sons to know;
To pierce the veil on Moses’ face,
Although his speech be slow.

At Sea. January 9, 1833.

LIX Judgment

If e’er I fall beneath Thy rod,
As through life’s snares I go,
Save me from David’s lot, O God!
And choose Thyself the woe.

How should I face Thy plagues? which scare,
And haunt, and stun, until
The heart or sinks in mute despair,
Or names a random ill.

If else⁠ ⁠… then guide in David’s path,
Who chose the holier pain;
Satan and man are tools of wrath,
An Angel’s scourge is gain.

Off Malta. January 10, 1833.

LX Sensitiveness

Time was, I shrank from what was right
From fear of what was wrong;
I would not brave the sacred fight,
Because the foe was strong.

But now I cast that finer sense
And sorer shame aside;
Such dread of sin was indolence,
Such aim at Heaven was pride.

So, when my Saviour calls, I rise,
And calmly do my best;
Leaving to Him, with silent eyes
Of hope and fear, the rest.

I step, I mount where He has led;
Men count my haltings o’er;⁠—
I know them; yet, though self I dread,
I love His precept more.

Lazaret, Malta. January 15, 1833.

LXI David and Jonathan

“Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”

O heart of fire! misjudged by wilful man,
Thou flower of Jesse’s race!
What woe was thine, when thou and Jonathan
Last greeted face to face!
He doom’d to die, thou on us to impress
The portent of a blood-stain’d holiness.

Yet it was well:⁠—for so, ’mid cares of rule
And crime’s encircling tide,
A spell was o’er thee, zealous one, to cool
Earth-joy and kingly pride;
With battle-scene and pageant, prompt to blend
The pale calm spectre of a blameless friend.

Ah! had he lived, before thy throne to stand,
Thy spirit keen and high
Sure it had snapp’d in twain love’s slender band,
So dear in memory;
Paul, of his comrade reft, the warning gives⁠—
He lives to us who dies, he is but lost who lives.

Lazaret, Malta. January 16, 1833.

LXII Humiliation

I have been honour’d and obey’d,
I have met scorn and slight;
And my heart loves earth’s sober shade,
More than her laughing light.

For what is rule but a sad weight
Of duty and a snare?
What meanness, but with happier fate
The Saviour’s Cross to share?

This my hid choice, if not from heaven,
Moves on the heavenward line;
Cleanse it, good Lord, from earthly leaven,
And make it simply Thine.

Lazaret, Malta. January 16, 1833.

LXIII The Call of David

“And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”

Latest born of Jesse’s race,
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