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

of the Tree of Life;
Its leaves are shed upon the unthankful earth,
Which lets them whirl, a prey to the winds’ strife,
Heartless to store them for the months of dearth.
Men close the door, and dress the cheerful hearth,
Self-trusting still; and in his comely gear
Of precept and of rite, a household Baal rear.

But I will out amid the sleet, and view
Each shrivelling stalk and silent-falling leaf.
Truth after truth, of choicest scent and hue,
Fades, and in fading stirs the Angels’ grief,
Unanswer’d here; for she, once pattern chief
Of faith, my Country, now gross hearted grown,
Waits but to burn the stem before her idol’s throne.

At Sea. June 23, 1833.

CVII Consolation

“It is I; be not afraid.”

When I sink down in gloom or fear,
Hope blighted or delay’d,
Thy whisper, Lord, my heart shall cheer,
“ ’Tis I; be not afraid!”

Or, startled at some sudden blow,
If fretful thoughts I feel,
“Fear not, it is but I!” shall flow,
As balm my wound to heal.

Nor will I quit Thy way, though foes
Some onward pass defend;
From each rough voice the watchword goes,
“Be not afraid!⁠ ⁠… a friend!”

And oh! when judgment’s trumpet clear
Awakes me from the grave,
Still in its echo may I hear,
“ ’Tis Christ; He comes to save.”

At Sea. June 23, 1833.

CVIII Uzzah and Obed-Edom

The ark of God has hidden strength;
Who reverence or profane,
They, or their seed, shall find at length
The penalty or gain.

While as a sojourner it sought
Of old its destined place,
A blessing on the home it brought
Of one who did it grace.

But there was one, outstripping all
The holy-vestured band,
Who laid on it, to save its fall,
A rude corrective hand.

Read, who the Church would cleanse, and mark
How stern the warning runs;
There are two ways to aid her ark⁠—
As patrons, and as sons.

At Sea. June 24, 1833.

CIX The Gift of Tongues

Once cast with men of language strange
And foreign-moulded creed,
I mark’d their random converse change,
And sacred themes succeed.

Oh, how I coveted the gift
To thread their mingled throng
Of sounds, then high my witness lift!
But weakness chain’d my tongue.

Lord! has our dearth of faith and prayer
Lost us this power once given,
Or is it sent at seasons rare
And then flits back to heaven?

At Sea. June 24, 1833.

CX The Power of Prayer

There is not on the earth a soul so base
But may obtain a place
In covenanted grace;
So that his feeble prayer of faith obtains
Some loosening of his chains,
And earnests of the great release, which rise
From gift to gift, and reach at length the eternal prize.

All may save self;⁠—but minds that heavenward tower
Aim at a wider power,
Gifts on the world to shower.⁠—
And this is not at once;⁠—by fastings gain’d,
And trials well sustain’d,
By pureness, righteous deeds, and toils of love,
Abidance in the Truth, and zeal for God above.

At Sea. June 24, 1833.

CXI Semita Justorum

When I look back upon my former race,
Seasons I see at which the Inward Ray
More brightly burn’d, or guided some new way;
Truth, in its wealthier scene and nobler space
Given for my eye to range, and feet to trace.
And next I mark, ’twas trial did convey,
Or grief, or pain, or strange eventful day,
To my tormented soul such larger grace.
So now, whene’er, in journeying on, I feel
The shadow of the Providential Hand,
Deep breathless stirrings shoot across my breast,
Searching to know what He will now reveal,
What sin uncloak, what stricter rule command,
And girding me to work His full behest.

At Sea. June 25, 1833.

CXII The Elements

(A Tragic Chorus.)

Man is permitted much
To scan and learn
In Nature’s frame;
Till he well-nigh can tame
Brute mischiefs and can touch
Invisible things, and turn
All warring ills to purposes of good.
Thus, as a god below,
He can control,
And harmonize, what seems amiss to flow
As sever’d from the whole
And dimly understood.

But o’er the elements
One Hand alone,
One Hand has sway.
What influence day by day
In straiter belt prevents
The impious Ocean, thrown
Alternate o’er the ever-sounding shore?
Or who has eye to trace
How the Plague came?
Forerun the doublings of the Tempest’s race?
Or the Air’s weight and flame
On a set scale explore?

Thus God has will’d
That man, when fully skill’d,
Still gropes in twilight dim;
Encompass’d all his hours
By fearfullest powers
Inflexible to him.
That so he may discern
His feebleness.
And e’en for earth’s success
To Him in wisdom turn,
Who holds for us the keys of either home,
Earth and the world to come.

At Sea. June 25, 1833.

CXIII Apostacy

France! I will think of thee as what thou wast,
When Poictiers show’d her zeal for the true creed;
Or in that age, when Holy Truth, though cast
On a rank soil, yet was a thriving seed,
Thy schools within, from neighbouring countries chased;
E’en of thy pagan day I bear to read,
Thy Martyrs sanctified the guilty host,
The sons of blessèd John, rear’d on a western coast.

I dare not think of thee as what thou art,
Lest thoughts too deep for man should trouble me.
It is not safe to place the mind and heart
On brink of evil, or its flames to see,
Lest they should dizzy, or some taint impart,
Or to our sin a fascination be.
And so in silence I will now proclaim
Hate of thy present self, and scarce will sound thy name.10

Off the French coast. June 26, 1833.

CXIV Judaism

(A Tragic Chorus.)

O piteous race!
Fearful to look upon,
Once standing in high place,
Heaven’s eldest son.
O aged blind
Unvenerable! as thou flittest by,
I liken thee to him in pagan song,
In thy gaunt majesty,
The vagrant King, of haughty-purposed mind,
Whom prayer nor plague could bend;11
Wrong’d, at the cost of him