John Henry Newman: Verses about Time

Type of the West, and glorying in the name
More than in Faith's pure fame!
Oh. trust not crafty fort nor rock renowned
Earned upon hostile ground;
Wielding Trade's master-keys, at thy proud will
To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still.

Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel's prime,
High towers have been man's crime.
Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare,
Strongholds have been man's snare.
Thy nest is in the crags; ah, refuge frail!
Mad counsel in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.

He who scanned Sodom for His righteous men
Still spares thee for thy ten;
But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy,
He will not pass thee by;
For, as earth's kings welcome their spotless guest,
So gives He them by turn, to suffer or be blest.

'Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!'

IN childhood, when with eager eyes
The season-measured year I view'd,
All garb'd in fairy guise,
Pledged constancy of good.

Spring sang of heaven; the summer flowers
Bade me gaze on, and did not fade;
Even suns o'er autumn's bowers
Heard my strong wish, and stay'd.

They came and went, the short-lived four;
Yet, as their varying dance they wove,
To my young heart each bore
Its own sure claim of love.

Far different now;—the whirling year
Vainly my dizzy eyes pursue;
And its fair tints appear
All blent in one dusk hue.

Why dwell on rich autumnal lights,
Spring-time, or winter's social ring?
Long days are fire-side nights,
Brown autumn is fresh spring.

Then what this world to thee, my heart?
Its gifts nor feed thee nor can bless.
Thou hast no owner's part
In all its fleetingness.

The flame, the storm, the quaking ground,
Earth's joy, earth's terror, nought is thine,
Thou must but hear the sound
Of the still voice divine.

O priceless art! O princely state!
E'en while by sense of change opprest,
Within to antedate
Heaven's Age of fearless rest.

Death was full urgent with thee, Sister dear,
And startling in his speed;—
Brief pain, then languor till thy end came near—
Such was the path decreed,
The hurried road
To lead thy soul from earth to thine own God's
abode.

Death wrought with thee, sweet maid, impatiently:—
Yet merciful the haste
That baffles sickness;—dearest, thou didst die,
Thou wast not made to taste
Death's bitterness,
Decline's slow-wasting charm, or fever's fierce
distress.

Death came unheralded:—but it was well;
For so thy Saviour bore
Kind witness, thou wast meet at once to dwell
On His eternal shore;
All warning spared,
For none He gives where hearts are for prompt change
prepared.

Death wrought in mystery; both complaint and cure
To human skill unknown:—
God put aside all means, to make us sure
It was His deed alone;
Lest we should lay
Reproach on our poor selves, that thou wast caught
away.

Death urged as scant of time:—lest, Sister dear,
We many a lingering day
Had sicken'd with alternate hope and fear,
The ague of delay;
Watching each spark
Of promise quench'd in turn, till all our sky was
dark.

Death came and went:—that so thy image might
Our yearning hearts possess,
Associate with all pleasant thoughts and bright,
With youth and loveliness;
Sorrow can claim,
Mary, nor lot nor part in thy soft soothing name.

Joy of sad hearts, and light of downcast eyes!
Dearest thou art enshrined
In all thy fragrance in our memories;
For we must ever find
Bare thought of thee
Freshen this weary life, while weary life shall be.

'
The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth.
'
She is not gone;—still in our sight
That dearest maid shall live,
In form as true, in tints as bright,
As youth and health could give.

Still, still is ours the modest eye;
The smile unwrought by art;
The glance that shot so piercingly
Affection's keenest dart;

The thrilling voice, I ne'er could hear
But felt a joy and pain;—
A pride that she was ours, a fear
Ours she might not remain;

Whether the page divine call'd forth
Its clear sweet, tranquil tone,
Or cheerful hymn, or seemly mirth
In sprightlier measure shown;

The meek inquiry of that face,
Musing on wonders found,
As 'mid dim paths she sought to trace
The truth on sacred ground;

The thankful sigh that would arise,
When aught her doubts removed,
Full sure the explaining voice to prize,
Admiring while she loved;

The pensive brow, the world might see
When she in crowds was found;
The burst of heart, the o'erflowing glee
When only friends were round;

Hope's warmth of promise, prompt to fill
The thoughts with good in store,
Match'd with content's deep stream, which still
Flow'd on, when hope was o'er;

That peace, which, with its own bright day,
Made cheapest sights shine fair;
That purest grace, which track'd its way
Safe from aught earthly there.

Such was she in the sudden hour
That brought her Maker's call,—
Proving her heart's self-mastering power
Blithely to part with all,—

All her eye loved, all her hand press'd
With keen affection's glow,
The voice of home, all pleasures best,
All dearest thoughts below.

From friend-lit hearth, from social board,
All duteously she rose;
For faith upon the Master's word
Can find a sure repose.

And in her wonder up she sped,
And tried relief in vain;
Then laid her down upon her bed
Of languor and of pain,—

And waited till the solemn spell,
(A ling'ring night and day,)
Should fill its numbers, and compel
Her soul to come away.

Such was she then; and such she is,
Shrined in each mourner's breast;
Such shall she be, and more than this,
In promised glory blest;

When in due lines her Saviour dear
His scatter'd saints shall range,
And knit in love souls parted here,
Where cloud is none, nor change.

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; [Note]
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
Her prayers were not in vain;
And that God's grace-according love
Has come as gentle rain, {15}
Which, falling in the vernal hour,
Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.

Dear Frank, we both are summon'd now
As champions of the Lord;—
Enroll'd am I, and shortly thou
Must buckle on thy sword;
A high employ, nor lightly given,
To serve as messengers of heaven!

Deep in my heart that gift I hide;
I change it not away
For patriot-warrior's hour of pride,
Or statesman's tranquil sway;
For poet's fire, or pleader's skill
To pierce the soul and tame the will.

O! may we follow undismay'd
Where'er our God shall call!
And may His Spirit's present aid
Uphold us lest we fall!
Till in the end of days we stand,
As victors in a deathless land.

Let the sun summon all his beams to hold
Bright pageant in his court, the cloud-paved sky
Earth trim her fields and leaf her copses cold;
Till the dull month with summer-splendours vie.
It is my Birthday;—and I fain would try,
Albeit in rude, in heartfelt strains to praise
My God, for He hath shielded wondrously
From harm and envious error all my ways,
And purged my misty sight, and fixed on heaven
my gaze.

Not in that mood, in which the insensate crowd
Of wealthy folly hail their natal day,—
With riot throng, and feast, and greetings loud,
Chasing all thoughts of God and heaven away.
Poor insect! feebly daring, madly gay,
What! joy because the fulness of the year
Marks thee for greedy death a riper prey?
Is not the silence of the grave too near?
Viewest thou the end with glee, meet scene for
harrowing fear?


Go then, infatuate! where the festive hall,
The curious board, the oblivious wine invite;
Speed with obsequious haste at Pleasure's call,
And with thy revels scare 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!


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.'


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.


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.

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.