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

round.
Not a sight so fair on earth,
As a lady’s graceful mirth;
Not a sound so chasing pain,
As a lady’s thrilling strain.⁠—
Nor is Nature left behind
In her lighter moods of mind;
Calm her duties to fulfil,
In her glee a prattler still.
Bird and beast of every sort
Hath its antic and its sport;
Chattering brook, and dancing gnat,
Subtle cry of evening bat,
Moss uncouth, and twigs grotesque,
These are Nature’s picturesque.

Where the birth of Poesy?
Its fancy and its fire?
Nature’s earth, and sea, and sky,
Fervid thoughts inspire.
Where do wealth and power find rest,
When hopes have fail’d, or toil oppress’d?
Parks, and lawns, and deer, and trees,
Nature’s work, restore them ease.⁠—
Rare the rich, the gifted rare⁠—
Where shall work-day souls repair,
Unennobled, unrefined,
From the rude world and unkind?
Who shall friend their lowly lot?
High-born Nature answers not.
Leave her in her starry dome,
Seek we lady-lighted home.
Nature ’mid the spheres bears sway,
Ladies rule where hearts obey.

Oxford. February 4, 1829.

XII Opusculum For a Very Small Album

Fair Cousin, thy page
is small to encage
the thoughts which engage
the mind of a sage,
such as I am;

’Twere in teaspoon to take
the whole Genevese lake,
or a lap-dog to make
the white Elephant sac-
-red in Siam.

Yet inadequate though
to the terms strange and so-
-lemn that figure in po-
-lysyllabical row
in a treatise;

Still, true words and plain,
of the heart, not the brain,
in affectionate strain,
this book to contain
very meet is.

So I promise to be
a good Cousin to thee,
and to keep safe the se-
-cret I heard, although e-
-v’ry one know it;

With a lyrical air
my kind thoughts I would dare,
and offer whate’er
beseems the news, were
I a poet.

Brighton. April, 1829.

XIII A Voice from Afar

Weep not for me;⁠—
Be blithe as wont, nor tinge with gloom
The stream of love that circles home,
Light hearts and free!
Joy in the gifts Heaven’s bounty lends;
Nor miss my face, dear friends!

I still am near;⁠—
Watching the smiles I prized on earth,
Your converse mild, your blameless mirth;
Now too I hear
Of whisper’d sounds the tale complete,
Low prayers, and musings sweet.

A sea before
The Throne is spread;⁠—its pure still glass
Pictures all earth-scenes as they pass.
We, on its shore,
Share, in the bosom of our rest,
God’s knowledge, and are blest.

Horsepath. September 29, 1829.

XIV The Hidden Ones

Hid are the saints of God;⁠—
Uncertified by high angelic sign;
Nor raiment soft, nor empire’s golden rod
Marks them divine.
Theirs but the unbought air, earth’s parent sod,
And the sun’s smile benign;⁠—
Christ rears His throne within the secret heart,
From the haughty world apart.

They gleam amid the night,
Chill sluggish mists stifling the heavenly ray;
Fame chants the while⁠—old history trims his light,
Aping the day;
In vain! staid look, loud voice, and reason’s might
Forcing its learned way,
Blind characters! these aid us not to trace
Christ and His princely race.

Yet not all-hid from those
Who watch to see;⁠—’neath their dull guise of earth,
Bright bursting gleams unwittingly disclose
Their heaven-wrought birth.
Meekness, love, patience, faith’s serene repose;
And the soul’s tutor’d mirth,
Bidding the slow heart dance, to prove her power
O’er self in its proud hour.

These are the chosen few,
The remnant fruit of largely-scatter’d grace,
God sows in waste, to reap whom He foreknew
Of man’s cold race;
Counting on wills perverse, in His clear view
Of boundless time and space,
He waits, by scant return for treasures given,
To fill the thrones of heaven.

Lord! who can trace but Thou
The strife obscure, ’twixt sin’s soul-thralling spell
And Thy keen Spirit, now quench’d, reviving now?
Or who can tell,
Why pardon’s seal stands sure on David’s brow,
Why Saul and Demas fell?
Oh! lest our frail hearts in the annealing break,
Help, for Thy mercy’s sake!

Horsepath. September, 1829.

XV Thanksgiving

“Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.”

Lord, in this dust Thy sovereign voice
First quicken’d love divine;
I am all Thine⁠—Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.

I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace,
For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;

Blessings in boyhood’s marvelling hour,
Bright dreams, and fancyings strange;
Blessings, when reason’s awful power
Gave thought a bolder range;

Blessings of friends, which to my door
Unask’d, unhoped, have come;
And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.

Yet, Lord, in memory’s fondest place
I shrine those seasons sad,
When, looking up, I saw Thy face
In kind austereness clad.

I would not miss one sigh or tear,
Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;
Sweet was the chastisement severe,
And sweet its memory now.

Yes! let the fragrant scars abide,
Love-tokens in Thy stead,
Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side
And thorn-encompass’d head.

And such Thy tender force be still,
When self would swerve or stray,
Shaping to truth the froward will
Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth; far, far remove
The lure of power or name;
Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
And faith in this world’s shame.

Oxford. October 20, 1829.

XVI Monks For Another Small Album

(With lines on hinges to fit it.)

Why, dear Cousin,
why
Ask for verses,
when a poet’s
fount of song is
dry?
Or, if aught be
there,
Harsh and chill, it
ill may touch the
hand of lady
fair.
Who can perfumed waters
bring
From a convent
spring?

“Monks in the olden
time,
“They were rhymesters?”⁠—
they were rhymesters,
but in Latin
rhyme.
Monks in the days of
old
Lived in secret,
in the Church’s
kindly-sheltering
fold.
No bland meditators
they
Of a courtly
lay.

“They had visions
bright?”⁠—
they had visions,
yet not sent in
slumbers soft and
light.
No! a lesson
stern
First by vigils,
fast, and penance
theirs it was to
learn.
This their soul-ennobling
gain,
Joys wrought out by
pain.

“When from home they
stirr’d,
“Sweet their voices?”⁠—
still, a blessing
closed their merriest
word;
And their gayest
smile
Told of musings
solitary,
and the hallow’d
aisle.
“Songsters?”⁠—hark! they answer!
round
Plaintive chantings
sound!

Grey his cowlèd
vest,
Whose strong heart has
pledged his service
to the cloister
blest.
Duly garb’d is
he,
As the frost-work
gems the branches
of yon stately
tree.
’Tis a danger-thwarting
spell,
And it fits me
well!

Oxford. December, 1829.

XVII Epiphany-Eve A Birthday Offering

Birthday gifts, with the early year,
Lo! we bring thee, Mary dear!
Prayer and praise upon thy death
Twined together in a wreath,
Grief and gladness, such as may
Suit