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Home  »  Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse  »  Waiting for the Morning

Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

Waiting for the Morning

 
        THEY are at rest:
We may not stir the heaven of their repose
With loud-voiced grief, or passionate request,
        Or selfish plaint for those
Who in the mountain grots of Eden lie,        5
And hear the fourfold river as it hurries by.
 
        They hear it sweep
In distance down the dark and savage vale;
But they at eddying pool or current deep
        Shall never more grow pale;        10
They hear, and meekly muse, as fain to know
How long untired, unspent, that giant stream shall flow.
 
        And soothing sounds
Blend with the neighbouring waters as they glide;
Posted along the haunted garden’s bounds        15
        Angelic forms abide,
Echoing as words of watch, o’er lawn and grove,
The verses of that hymn which seraphs chant above.