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

oil and wine to tend.

Palermo. June 13, 1833.

LXXXIX Reverence

I bow at Jesu’s name, for ’tis the Sign
Of awful mercy towards a guilty line.
Of shameful ancestry, in birth defiled,
And upwards from a child
Full of unlovely thoughts and rebel aims
And scorn of judgment-flames,
How without fear can I behold my Life,
The Just assailing sin, and death-stain’d in the strife?

And so, albeit His woe is our release,
Thought of that woe aye dims our earthly peace;
The Life is hidden in a Fount of Blood!
And this is tidings good
For souls, who, pierced that they have caused that woe,
Are fain to share it too:
But for the many, clinging to their lot
Of worldly ease and sloth, ’tis written “Touch Me not.”

Off Monte Pellegrino. June 14, 1833.

XC The Pillar of the Cloud

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home⁠—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene⁠—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray’d that Thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path, but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on,
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

At Sea. June 16, 1833.

XCI Samaria

O rail not at our kindred in the North,
Albeit Samaria finds her likeness there;
A self-form’d Priesthood, and the Church cast forth
To the chill mountain air.

What, though their fathers sinned, and lost the grace
Which seals the Holy Apostolic Line?
Christ’s love o’erflows the bounds his Prophets trace
In His reveal’d design.

Israel had Seers; to them the Word is nigh;
Shall not that Word run forth, and gladness give
To many a Shunammite, till in His eye
The full Seven-thousand live?

Off Sardinia. June 17, 1833.

XCII Jonah

“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord.”

Deep in his meditative bower,
The tranquil seer reclined;
Numbering the creepers of an hour,
The gourds which o’er him twined.

To note each plant, to rear each fruit
Which soothes the languid sense,
He deem’d a safe, refined pursuit⁠—
His Lord, an indolence.

The sudden voice was heard at length,
“Lift thou the prophet’s rod!”
But sloth had sapp’d the prophet’s strength,
He fear’d, and fled from God.

Next, by a fearful judgment tamed,
He threats the offending race;
God spares;⁠—he murmurs, pride-inflamed,
His threat made void by grace.

What?⁠—pride and sloth! man’s worst of foes!
And can such guests invade
Our choicest bliss, the green repose
Of the sweet garden-shade?

Off Sardinia. June 18, 1833.

XCIII Faith Against Sight

“As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man.”

The world has cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o’er again:⁠—
Not by some fated law, which need appal
Our faith, or binds our deeds as with a chain;
But by men’s separate sins, which blended still
The same bad round fulfil.

Then fear ye not, though Gallio’s scorn ye see,
And soft-clad nobles count you mad, true hearts!
These are the fig-tree’s signs;⁠—rough deeds must be,
Trials and crimes: so learn ye well your parts.
Once more to plough the earth it is decreed,
And scatter wide the seed.

Off Sardinia. June 18, 1833.

XCIV Desolation

O, say not thou art left of God,
Because His tokens in the sky
Thou canst not read: this earth He trod
To teach thee He was ever nigh.

He sees, beneath the fig-tree green,
Nathaniel con His sacred lore;
Shouldst thou thy chamber seek, unseen,
He enters through the unopen’d door.

And when thou liest, by slumber bound,
Outwearied in the Christian fight,
In glory, girt with Saints around,
He stands above thee through the night.

When friends to Emmaus bend their course,
He joins, although He holds their eyes:
Or, shouldst thou feel some fever’s force,
He takes thy hand, He bids thee rise.

Or on a voyage, when calms prevail,
And prison thee upon the sea,
He walks the wave, He wings the sail,
The shore is gain’d, and thou art free.

Off Sardinia. June 18, 1833.

XCV Zeal and Patience

“I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord.”

O comrade bold of toil and pain!
Thy trial how severe,
When sever’d first by prisoner’s chain
From thy loved labour-sphere!

Say, did impatience first impel
The heaven-sent bond to break?
Or, couldst thou bear its hindrance well,
Loitering for Jesu’s sake?

Oh, might we know! for sore we feel
The languor of delay,
When sickness lets our fainter zeal,
Or foes block up our way.

Lord! who Thy thousand years dost wait
To work the thousandth part
Of Thy vast plan, for us create
With zeal a patient heart.

Off Sardinia. June 19, 1833.

XCVI The Religion of Cain

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The time has been, it seem’d a precept plain
Of the true faith, Christ’s tokens to display;
And in life’s commerce still the thought retain,
That men have souls, and wait a judgment-day;
Kings used their gifts as ministers of heaven,
Nor stripp’d their zeal for God, of means which God had given.

’Tis alter’d now;⁠—for Adam’s eldest born
Has train’d our practice in a selfish rule,
Each stands alone, Christ’s bonds asunder torn;
Each has his private thought, selects his school,
Conceals his creed, and lives in closest tie
Of fellowship with those who count it blasphemy.

Brothers! spare reasoning;⁠—men have settled long
That ye are out of date, and they are wise;
Use their own weapons; let your words be strong,
Your cry be loud, till each scared boaster flies;
Thus the Apostles tamed the pagan breast,
They argued