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

a solemn holiday.
Christmas snow, for maiden’s bloom
Blanched in winter’s sudden tomb;
Christmas berries, His red token
Who that grave’s stern seal hath broken;
These for thee the faithful heart,
Due mementos, sets apart.

’Twas a fast, that Eve of sorrow,
Herald veil’d of glorious morrow.
Speechless we sat; and watch’d, to know
How it would be; but time moved slow,
Along that day of sacred woe.
Then came the Feast, and we were told
Bravely of our best to bring,
Myrrh, and frankincense, and gold,
As our tribute to our King.

Dearest, gentlest, purest, best!
Deep is thy mysterious rest,
Now the solemn hours are over
And the Angels round thee hover,
With the fanning of their wings
Keeping time to one who sings
Of high themes consolatory,
Of the All-loving and His glory,
Of the age that has no ending,
Of the day of thy ascending
From those shades of paradise
To the bright supernal skies.

Thinkest of us, dearest, ever?
Ah! so be it nought can sever
Spirit and life, the past and present,
Still we yield thee musings pleasant.
—God above, and we below;⁠—
So thought ranges, to and fro.
He, in sooth, by tutorings mild,
From the rude clay shaped His child,
Fiery trial, anguish chill,
Served not here His secret will;
But His voice was low and tender,
And so true was thy surrender,
That the work in haste was done,
Grace and nature blent in one.⁠—
Harmless thus, and not unmeet,
To kiss the dear prints of thy feet,
Tracing thus the narrow road
All must tread, and Christ has trod.

Loveliest, meekest, blithest, kindest!
Lead! we seek the home thou findest!
Though thy name to us most dear,
Go! we would not have thee here.
Lead, a guiding beacon bright
To travellers on the Eve of Light.
Welcome aye thy Star before us,
Bring it grief or gladness o’er us;⁠—
Keen regret and tearful yearning,
Whiles unfelt, and whiles returning;⁠—
Or more gracious thoughts abiding,
Fever-quelling, sorrow-chiding;⁠—
Or, when day-light blessings fail,
Transport fresh as spice-fraught gale,
Sparks from thee, which oft have lighted
Weary heart and hope benighted.

I this monument would raise,
Distant from the public gaze.
Few will see it;⁠—few e’er knew thee;
But their beating hearts pursue thee⁠—
And their eyes fond thoughts betoken,
Though thy name be seldom spoken.
Pass on, stranger, and despise it!
These will read, and these will prize it.

Oxford. January 5, 1830.

XVIII The Winter Flower A Birthday Offering

(For Music.)

Bloom, beloved Flower!⁠—
Unknown;⁠—’tis no matter.
Courts glitter brief hour,
Crowds can but flatter.

Plants in the garden
See best the Sun’s glory;
They miss the green sward in
A conservatory.

—prized where’er known.⁠—
Sure this is a blessing,
Outrings the loud tone
Of the dull world’s caressing.

Oxford. December 30, 1830.

XIX Kind Remembrances

’Tis long, dear Annie, since we met,
Yet deem not that my heart,
For all that absence, can forget
A kinsman’s pious part.

How oft on thee, a sufferer mild,
My kindly thoughts I turn,
He knows, upon whose altar piled
The prayers of suppliants burn.

I love thy name, admiring all
Thy sacred heaven-sent pain;
I love it, for it seems to call
The Lost to earth again.

Can I forget, she to thy need
Her ministry supplied,
Who now, from mortal duty freed,
Serves at the Virgin’s side?

What would’st thou more? Upon thy head
A two-fold grace is pour’d;⁠—
Both in thyself, and for the dead,
A witness of thy Lord!

Oxford. March, 1831.

XX Seeds in the Air For an Album

“Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo
Seminibus.”

Could I hit on a theme
To fashion my verse on,
Not long would I seem
A lack-courtesy person.
But I have not the skill,
Nor talisman strong,
To summon at will
The Spirit of song.⁠—
Bright thoughts are roaming
Unseen in the air;
Like comets, their coming
Is sudden and rare.
They strike, and they enter,
And light up the brain,
Which thrills to its centre
With rapturous pain.
Where the chance-seed
Is piously nursed,
Brighter succeed
In the path of the first.⁠—
One sighs to the Muse,
Or the sweet nightingale,
One sips the night-dews
Which moon-beams exhale.
All this is a fiction;
I never could find
A suitable friction
To frenzy my mind.
What use are empirics?
No gas on their shelf
Can make one spout lyrics
In spite of oneself!

Dartington. July 18, 1831.

XXI The Pilgrim For an Album

There stray’d awhile, amid the woods of Dart,
One who could love them, but who durst not love.
A vow had bound him, ne’er to give his heart
To streamlet bright, or soft secluded grove.
’Twas a hard humbling task, onwards to move
His easy-captured eyes from each fair spot,
With unattach’d and lonely step to rove
O’er happy meads, which soon its print forgot:⁠—
Yet kept he safe his pledge, prizing his pilgrim-lot.

Dartington. July 21, 1831.

XXII Home

Where’er I roam in this fair English land,
The vision of a Temple meets my eyes:
Modest without; within, all-glorious rise
Its love-encluster’d columns, and expand
Their slender arms. Like olive-plants they stand,
Each answ’ring each, in home’s soft sympathies,
Sisters and brothers. At the altar sighs
Parental fondness, and with anxious hand
Tenders its offering of young vows and prayers.
The same, and not the same, go where I will,
The vision beams! ten thousand shrines, all one.
Dear fertile soil! what foreign culture bears
Such fruit? And I through distant climes may run
My weary round, yet miss thy likeness still.

Oxford. November 16, 1832.

XXIII The Brand of Cain

I bear upon my brow the sign
Of sorrow and of pain;
Alas! no hopeful cross is mine,
It is the brand of Cain.

The course of passion, and the fret
Of godless hope and fear⁠—
Toil, care, and guilt⁠—their hues have set,
And fix’d their sternness there.

Saviour! wash out the imprinted shame;
That I no more may pine,
Sin’s martyr, though not meet to claim
Thy cross, a saint of Thine.

Oxford. November 18, 1832.

XXIV Zeal and Love

And would’st thou reach, rash scholar mine,
Love’s high unruffled state?
Awake! thy easy dreams resign,
First learn thee how to hate:⁠—

Hatred of sin, and Zeal, and Fear,
Lead up the Holy Hill;
Track them, till Charity appear
A self-denial still.

Dim is the philosophic flame.
By thoughts severe unfed:
Book-lore ne’er served, when trial came,
Nor gifts, when faith was dead.

Oxford.