Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Verses on Various Occasions. I. Nature and ArtJohn Henry Newman (18011890)
(For an Album)
“M
Upon his wealth of mind,
As if in self a thing of dust
Creative skill might find;
He schemes and toils; stone, wood, and ore
Subject or weapon of his power.
He would his boast fulfil;
By marble births, and mimic lights,—
Yet lacks one secret still;
Where is the master-hand shall give
To breathe, to move, to speak, to live?
The puny toil of man,
And let great Nature in my sight
Unroll her gorgeous plan;
I cannot bear those sullen walls,
Those eyeless towers, those tongueless halls.
Are nerveless, cold, and dumb;
And man is fitted but to frame
A coffin or a tomb;
Well suit when sense is pass’d away,
Such lifeless works the lifeless clay.
Skirt yon far-reaching plain;
While cattle bank its winding rills,
And suns embrown its grain;
Such prospect is to me right dear,
For freedom, health, and joy are here.
The earth, the stream, the air;
Ten thousand shapes, garbs ever new,
That restless One doth wear;
In colour, scent, and taste, and sound
The energy of life is found.
The bird renews her song;
From field to brook, o’er heath, o’er trees,
The sunbeam glides along;
The insect, happy in its hour,
Floats softly by, or sips the flower.
Brisk showers the welkin shroud;
I care not, though with angry brow
Frowns the red thunder cloud;
Let hail storm pelt, and lightning harm,
’Tis Nature’s work, and has its charm.
Full favour’d in thy court;
I of thy smiles but hear them tell,
And feed on their report,
Catching what glimpse an Ulcombe yields
To strangers loitering in her fields.
The sameness of its sway;
Where iron rule, stern precedent,
Mistreat the graceful day;
To pine as prisoner in his cell,
And yet be thought to love if well.
Who binds on each his part;
Though absent, I may cherish yet
An Ulcombe of the heart;
Calm verdant hope divinely given,
And suns of peace, and scenes of heaven;—
Full fix’d His work to do;
Not labour’d into sudden heat,
But inly born anew.—
So living Nature, not dull Art,
Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.