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Verses on Various Occasions ▾
contents
  1. To Edward Badeley, Esq.
  2. I
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII The Trance of Time “Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!”
  10. IX
  11. X A Picture “The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth.”
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. XIV
  16. XV Thanksgiving “Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.”
  17. XVI Monks For Another Small Album (With lines on hinges to fit it.)
  18. XVII
  19. XVIII The Winter Flower A Birthday Offering (For Music.)
  20. XIX
  21. XX Seeds in the Air For an Album “Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo Seminibus.”
  22. XXI
  23. XXII
  24. XXIII
  25. XXIV
  26. XXV Persecution “And the woman fled into the wilderness.”
  27. XXVI Zeal and Purity “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord.”
  28. XXVII
  29. XXVIII
  30. XXIX
  31. XXX
  32. XXXI
  33. XXXII
  34. XXXIII
  35. XXXIV
  36. XXXV
  37. XXXVI The Watchman (A Song.)
  38. XXXVII
  39. XXXVIII
  40. XXXIX
  41. XL
  42. XLI
  43. XLII
  44. XLIII
  45. XLIV
  46. XLV
  47. XLVI Jeremiah “O that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them!”
  48. XLVII
  49. XLVIII The Course of Truth “Him God raised up the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God.”
  50. XLIX
  51. L
  52. LI
  53. LII
  54. LIII
  55. LIV
  56. LV Melchizedek “Without father, without mother, without descent; having neither beginning of days, nor end of life.”
  57. LVI
  58. LVII Transfiguration “They glorified God in me.”
  59. LVIII
  60. LIX
  61. LX
  62. LXI David and Jonathan “Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”
  63. LXII
  64. LXIII The Call of David “And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”
  65. LXIV
  66. LXV
  67. LXVI
  68. LXVII
  69. LXVIII
  70. LXIX
  71. LXX St. Paul at Melita “And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat.”
  72. LXXI Messina “Homo sum; humani nil à me alienum puto.”
  73. LXXII
  74. LXXIII
  75. LXXIV
  76. LXXV Our Future “What I do, thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
  77. LXXVI
  78. LXXVII Taormini “And Jacob went on his way, and the Angels of God met him.”
  79. LXXVIII
  80. LXXIX Relics of Saints “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto Him.”
  81. LXXX Day-Labourers “And He said, It is finished.”
  82. LXXXI Warfare “Freely ye have received; freely give.”
  83. LXXXII
  84. LXXXIII Liberalism “Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel. Howbeit from the sins of Jeroboam Jehu departed not from after them, to wit, the golden calves that were in Bethel, and that were in Dan.”
  85. LXXXIV
  86. LXXXV
  87. LXXXVI
  88. LXXXVII
  89. LXXXVIII
  90. LXXXIX
  91. XC
  92. XCI
  93. XCII Jonah “But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord.”
  94. XCIII Faith Against Sight “As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be also in the day of the Son of Man.”
  95. XCIV
  96. XCV Zeal and Patience “I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord.”
  97. XCVI The Religion of Cain “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
  98. XCVII
  99. XCVIII
  100. XCIX
  101. C
  102. CI
  103. CII The Wrath to Come “From His mouth came out a sharp two-edged sword.”
  104. CIII Pusillanimity “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?”
  105. CIV
  106. CV
  107. CVI
  108. CVII Consolation “It is I; be not afraid.”
  109. CVIII
  110. CIX
  111. CX
  112. CXI
  113. CXII The Elements (A Tragic Chorus.)
  114. CXIII
  115. CXIV Judaism (A Tragic Chorus.)
  116. CXV
  117. CXVI
  118. CXVII
  119. CXVIII
  120. CXIX
  121. CXX
  122. CXXI
  123. CXXII Waiting for the Morning “Quoddam quasi pratum, in quo animae nihil patiebantur, sed manebant, nondum idoneae Visioni Beatae.” Bedae Hist. V
  124. CXXIII Matins—Sunday13 Primo die, quo Trinitas.
  125. CXXIV Matins—Sunday Nocte surgentes.
  126. CXXV Matins—Monday Somno refectis artubus.
  127. CXXVI Matins—Tuesday Consors Paterni luminis.
  128. CXXVII Matins—Wednesday Rerum Creator optime.
  129. CXXVIII Matins—Thursday Nox atra rerum contegit.
  130. CXXIX Matins—Friday Tu Trinitatis Unitas.
  131. CXXX Matins—Saturday Summae Parens clementiae.
  132. CXXXI Lauds—Sunday Aeterne rerum conditor.
  133. CXXXII Lauds—Sunday Ecce jam noctis.
  134. CXXXIII Lauds—Monday Splendor Paternae gloriae.
  135. CXXXIV Lauds—Tuesday Ales diei nuntius.
  136. CXXXV Lauds—Wednesday Nox et tenebrae et nubila.
  137. CXXXVI Lauds—Thursday Lux ecce surgit aurea.
  138. CXXXVII Lauds—Friday Aeterna coeli gloria.
  139. CXXXVIII Lauds—Saturday Aurora jam spargit polum.
  140. CXXXIX Prime Jam lucis orto sidere. (From the Parisian Breviary.14)
  141. CXL Terce Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus.
  142. CXLI Sext Rector potens, verax Deus.
  143. CXLII None Rerum Deus tenax vigor.
  144. CXLIII Vespers—Sunday Lucis Creator optime.
  145. CXLIV Vespers—Monday Immense coeli conditor.
  146. CXLV Vespers—Tuesday Telluris alme conditor.
  147. CXLVI Vespers—Wednesday Coeli Deus sanctissime.
  148. CXLVII Vespers—Thursday Magnae Deus potentiae.
  149. CXLVIII Vespers—Friday Hominis superne Conditor.
  150. CXLIX Vespers—Saturday Jam sol recedit igneus.
  151. CL Compline Te lucis ante terminum.
  152. CLI Advent—Vespers Creator alme siderum.
  153. CLII Advent—Matins Verbum supernum prodiens.
  154. CLIII Advent—Lauds En clara vox redarguit.
  155. CLIV The Transfiguration—Matins Quicunque Christum quaeritis.
  156. CLV The Transfiguration—Lauds Lux alma Jesu.
  157. CLVI For a Martyr Deus tuorum militum.
  158. CLVII For a Confessor Bishop Christe Pastorum.15
  159. CLVIII Ethelwald From St. Bede’s Metrical History of St. Cuthbert.
  160. CLIX Candlemas (A Song.)
  161. CLX The Pilgrim Queen (A Song.)
  162. CLXI The Month of Mary (A Song.)
  163. CLXII The Queen of Seasons (A Song for an inclement May.)
  164. CLXIII
  165. CLXIV St. Philip Neri in His Mission (A Song.)
  166. CLXV St. Philip in Himself (A Song.)
  167. CLXVI
  168. CLXVII
  169. CLXVIII
  170. CLXIX Heathen Greece (A Song.)
  171. CLXX A Martyr Convert (A Hymn.)
  172. CLXXI St. Philip in His School (A Song.)
  173. CLXXII St. Philip in His Disciples (A Song.)
  174. CLXXIII For the Dead (A Hymn.)
  175. CLXXIV To Edward Caswall (A gift for the new year in return for his volume of Poems.)
  176. CLXXV
  177. CLXXVI St. Michael (A Hymn.)
  178. CLXXVII
  179. CLXXVIII
  180. Endnotes
English ▾

Verses on Various Occasions

John Henry Newman

free · 34,945 words · ~2 h read · first published 1865

text from Standard Ebooks

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“cui pauca relicti
Jugera ruris erant; nec fertilis illa juvencis
Nec pecori opportuna seges, nec commoda Baccho.
Hic rarum tamen in dumis olus, albaque circùm
Lilia, verbenasque premens, vescumque papaver,
Regum aequabat opes animis.”

To Edward Badeley, Esq.

My Dear Badeley,

I have not been without apprehension lest in dedicating to you a number of poetical compositions, I should hardly be making a suitable offering to a member of a grave profession, which is especially employed in rubbing off the gloss with which imagination and sentiment invest matters of everyday life, and in reducing statements of fact to their legitimate dimensions. And, besides this, misgivings have not unnaturally come over me on the previous question; viz., whether, after all, the contents of the volume are of sufficient importance to make it an acceptable offering to any friend whatever.

And I must frankly confess, as to the latter difficulty, that certainly it never would have occurred to me thus formally to bring together under one title effusions which I have ever considered ephemeral, had I not lately found from publications of the day, what I never suspected before, that there are critics, and they strangers to me, who think well both of some of my compositions and of my power of composing. It is this commendation, bestowed on me to my surprise as well as to my gratification, which has encouraged me just now to republish what I have from time to time written; and if, in doing so, I shall be found, as is not unlikely, to have formed a volume of unequal merit, my excuse must be, that I despair of discovering any standard by which to discriminate aright between one poetical attempt and another. Accordingly, I am thrown, from the nature of the case, whether I will or no, upon my own judgment, which, biased by the associations of memory and by personal feelings, and measuring, perhaps, by the pleasure of verse-making, the worth of the verse, is disposed either to preserve them all, or to put them all aside.

Here another contrast presents itself between the poetical art and the science of law. Your profession has its definitive authorities, its prescriptions, its precedents, and its principles, by which to determine the claim of its authors on public attention; but what philosopher will undertake to rule matters of taste, or to bring under one idea or method works so different from each other as those of Homer, Aeschylus, and Pindar; of Terence, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial? What court is sitting, and what code is received, for the satisfactory determination of the poetical pretensions of writers of the day? Whence can we hope to gain a verdict upon them, except from the unscientific tribunals of Public Opinion and of Time? In Poetry, as in Metaphysics, a book is of necessity a venture.

And now, coming to the suitableness of my offering, I know well, my dear Badeley, how little you will be disposed to criticize what comes to you from me, whatever be its intrinsic value. Less still in this case, considering that a chief portion of the volume grew out of that Religious Movement which you yourself, as well as I, so faithfully followed from first to last. And least of all, when I tell you that I wish it to be the poor expression, long-delayed, of my gratitude, never intermitted, for the great services which you rendered to me years ago, by your legal skill and affectionate zeal, in a serious matter in which I found myself in collision with the law of the land. Those services I have ever desired in some public, however inadequate, way to record; and now, as time hurries on and opportunities are few, I am forced to ask you to let me acknowledge my debt to you as I can, since I cannot as I would.

We are now, both of us, in the decline of life: may that warm attachment which has lasted between us inviolate for so many years, be continued, by the mercy of God, to the end of our earthly course, and beyond it!

I am, my dear Badeley,
Affectionately yours,
J. H. N.

The Oratory,
December 21, 1867.

I

Solitude

There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower;
Touch’d by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.
By this the Arab’s kindling thoughts expand,
When circling skies enclose the desert sand;
For this the hermit seeks the thickest grove,
To catch th’ inspiring glow of heavenly love.
It is not solely in the freedom given
To purify and fix the heart on heaven;
There is a Spirit singing aye in air,
That lifts us high above all mortal care.
No mortal measure swells that mystic sound,
No mortal minstrel breathes such tones around—
The Angels’ hymn—the sovereign harmony
That guides the rolling orbs along the sky—
And hence perchance the tales of saints who view’d
And heard Angelic choirs in solitude.
By most unheard—because the earthly din
Of toil or mirth has charms their ears to win.
Alas for man! he knows not of the bliss,
The heaven that brightens such a life as this.

Oxford. Michaelmas Term, 1818.

II

My Birthday

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.

2.

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?

3.

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!

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.

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

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thank you for reading

Verses on Various Occasions by John Henry Newman. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

First published in 1865.

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