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

the far-spent night.
Joy thee, that clearer dawn upon thy sight
The gates of death;⁠—and pride thee in thy sum
Of guilty years, and thy increasing white
Of locks; in age untimely frolicksome,
Make much of thy brief span, few years are yet to come!

4.

Yet wiser such, than he whom blank despair
And fostered grief’s ungainful toil enslave;
Lodged in whose furrowed brow thrives fretful care,
Sour graft of blighted hope; who, when the wave
Of evil rushes, yields⁠—yet claims to rave
At his own deed, as the stern will of heaven.
In sooth against his Maker idly brave,
Whom e’en the creature-world has tossed and driven,
Cursing the life he mars, “a boon so kindly given.”1

5.

He dreams of mischief; and that brainborn ill
Man’s open face bears in his jealous view.
Fain would he fly his doom; that doom is still
His own black thoughts, and they must aye pursue.
Too proud for merriment, or the pure dew
Soft glistening on the sympathising cheek;
As some dark, lonely, evil-natured yew,
Whose poisonous fruit⁠—so fabling poets speak⁠—
Beneath the moon’s pale gleam the midnight hag doth seek.

6.

No! give to me, Great Lord, the constant soul,
Nor fooled by pleasure nor enslaved by care;
Each rebel-passion (for Thou canst) controul,
And make me know the tempter’s every snare.
What, though alone my sober hours I wear,
No friend in view, and sadness o’er my mind
Throws her dark veil?⁠—Thou but accord this prayer,
And I will bless Thee for my birth, and find
That stillness breathes sweet tones, and solitude is kind.

7.

Each coming year, O grant it to refine
All purer motions of this anxious breast;
Kindle the steadfast flame of love divine,
And comfort me with holier thoughts possest;
Till this worn body slowly sink to rest,
This feeble spirit to the sky aspire⁠—
As some long-prisoned dove toward her nest⁠—
There to receive the gracious full-toned lyre,
Bowed low before the Throne ’mid the bright seraph choir.

Oxford. February 21, 1819.2

III Paraphrase of Isaiah 64

O that Thou wouldest rend the breadth of sky,
That veils Thy presence from the sons of men!
O that, as erst Thou camest from on high
Sudden in strength, Thou so would’st come again!
Track’d out by judgments was Thy fiery path,
Ocean and mountain withering in Thy wrath!

Then would Thy name⁠—the Just, the Merciful⁠—
Strange dubious attributes to human mind,
Appal Thy foes; and, kings, who spurn Thy rule,
Then, then would quake to hopeless doom consign’d.
See, the stout bows, and totters the secure,
While pleasure’s bondsman hides his head impure!
Come down! for then shall from its seven bright springs
To him who thirsts the draught of life be given;
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard the things
Which He hath purposed for the heirs of heaven⁠—
A God of love, guiding with gracious ray
Each meek rejoicing pilgrim on his way.

Yea, though we err, and Thine averted face
Rebukes the folly in Thine Israel done,
Will not that hour of chastisement give place
To beams, the pledge of an eternal sun?
Yes! for His counsels to the end endure;
We shall be saved, our rest abideth sure.

Lord, Lord! our sins⁠ ⁠… our sins⁠ ⁠… unclean are we,
Gross and corrupt; our seeming-virtuous deeds
Are but abominate; all, dead to Thee,
Shrivel, like leaves when summer’s green recedes;
While, like the autumn blast, our lusts arise,
And sweep their prey where the fell serpent lies.

None, there is none to plead with God in prayer
Bracing his laggart spirit to the work
Of intercession; conscience-sprung despair,
Sin-loving still, doth in each bosom lurk.
Guilt calls Thee to avenge;⁠—Thy risen ire
Sears like a brand, we gaze and we expire.

But now, O Lord, our Father! we are Thine,
Design and fashion; senseless while we lay,
Thou, as the potter, with a Hand Divine,
Didst mould Thy vessels of the sluggish clay.
Mark not our guilt, Thy word of wrath recall,
Lo, we are Thine by price, Thy people all!

Alas for Zion! ’tis a waste;⁠—the fair,
The holy place in flames;⁠—where once our sires
Kindled the sacrifice of praise and prayer,
Far other brightness gleams from Gentile fires.
Low lies our pride;⁠—and wilt Thou self-deny
Thy rescuing arm unvex’d amid thine Israel’s cry?

Brighton. September, 1821.

IV To F. W. N. A Birthday Offering

Dear Frank, this morn has usher’d in
The manhood of thy days;
A boy no more, thou must begin
To choose thy future ways;
To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,
For maintenance of a noble part.

And thou a voucher fair hast given,
Of what thou wilt achieve,
Ere age has dimm’d thy sun-lit heaven,
In weary life’s chill eve;
Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace
Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.

My brother, we are link’d with chain
That time shall ne’er destroy;
Together we have been in pain,
Together now in joy;
For duly I to share may claim
The present brightness of thy name,

My brother, ’tis no recent tie
Which binds our fates in one,
E’en from our tender infancy
The twisted thread was spun;⁠—
Her deed, who stored in her fond mind
Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.

In her affection all had share,
All six, she loved them all;
Yet on her early-chosen Pair
Did her full favour fall;3
And we became her dearest theme,
Her waking thought, her nightly dream.

Ah! brother, shall we e’er forget
Her love, her care, her zeal?
We cannot pay the countless debt,
But we must ever feel;
For through her earnestness were shed
Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.

Though in the end of days she stood,
And pain and weakness came,
Her force of thought was unsubdued,
Her fire of love the same;
And e’en when memory fail’d its part,
We still kept lodgment in her heart.

And when her Maker from the thrall
Of flesh her spirit freed,
No suffering companied the call,
—In mercy ’twas decreed⁠—
One moment here, the next she trod
The viewless mansion of her God.

Now then at length she is at rest,
And, after many a woe,
Rejoices in that Saviour blest
Who was her hope below;
Kept till the day when He shall own
His saints before His Father’s throne.

So it is left for us to prove