John Henry Newman Poems

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;
...

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
...

Ladies, well I deem, delight
In comely tire to move;
Soft, and delicate, and bright,
Are the robes they love.
...

Fair Cousin, thy page
is small to encage
the thoughts which engage
...

I am rooted in the wall
Of buttress'd tower or ancient hall;
Prison'd in an art-wrought bed.
...

OH! miserable power
To dreams allow'd, to raise the guilty past,
And back awhile the illumined spirit to cast
On its youth's twilight hour;
...

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;
...

'Man goeth forth' with reckless trust
Upon his wealth of mind,
As if in self a thing of dust
Creative skill might find;
...

I am a harp of many chords, and each
Strung by a separate hand;—most musical
My notes, discoursing with the mental sense,
...

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
...