Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Verses on Various Occasions. II. A ThanksgivingJohn Henry Newman (18011890)
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First quicken’d love divine;
I am all Thine,—Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.
In childhood frail I trace,
For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;
Bright dreams, and fancyings strange
Blessings, when reason’s awful power
Gave thought a bolder range;
Unask’d, unhoped, have come
And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.
I shrine those seasons sad,
When, looking up, I saw Thy face
In kind austereness clad.
Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;
Sweet was the chastisement severe,
And sweet its memory now.
Love-tokens in Thy stead,
Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side
And thorn-encompass’d head.
When self would swerve or stray,
Shaping to truth the froward will
Along Thy narrow way.
The lure of power or name;
Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
And faith in this world’s shame.