{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_48927/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_48927","id":"gutenberg_48927","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48927","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian poetry, English -- 19th century"],"text":"[Illustration: JOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\nFrom a drawing by G. Richmond in the possession of H. E. Wilberforce,\nEsq. [By permission.]]\n\n THE\n DREAM OF GERONTIUS\n\n BY\n CARDINAL NEWMAN\n\n\n _WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_\n BY\n MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D.\n\n _Professor of English Language and Literature in the Catholic\n University of America, Washington, D. C._\n\n\n LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK\n LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA\n 1910\n\n\n Copyright, 1903,\n\n BY\n\n LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n\n\n _All rights reserved_\n\n\n First edition, September 30, 1903;\n Reprinted, with additions, September, 1904; August, 1908;\n February, 1910.\n\n\n\n\n FRATRI DESIDERATISSIMO\n\n JOANNI JOSEPH GORDON\n\n ORATORII S.P.N. PRESBYTERO\n\n CUJUS ANIMA IN REFRIGERIUM\n\n J. H. N.\n\n _In die Comm._\n\n _Omn. Fid. Def._\n\n 1865\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nAs a rule, when Cardinal Newman's poetry is mentioned, people think\nof \"The Pillar of the Cloud,\" better known as \"Lead, Kindly Light.\"\nThis lyric is only one of the many beautiful poems written by an\nauthor whose fame as a writer of the finest modern prose in the\nEnglish language has eclipsed his reputation as a poet. Nevertheless,\nhe wrote a very great poem, \"The Dream of Gerontius\"--a poem which\nthe intellectual world admires more and more every year, and which\nyields its best only after careful study and consideration. It has\nbeen described as a metrical meditation on death. It is more than\nthat; it is the realization by means of a loving heart and a poetic\nimagination of the state of a just soul after death,--Gerontius\ntypifying not the soul of a particular person imagined by Cardinal\nNewman, but your soul, my soul, any soul which may be fortunate\nenough to satisfy the judging and merciful God. No poet has ever\npresented the condition of the soul, as made known by the theology of\nthe Catholic Church, so forcibly and appealingly as Cardinal Newman.\nThe poem is filled with intense white light, and the soul on earth\nsees itself as it will be at the moment before its death; as it will\nbe when, strengthened by the last sacraments and upborne by the\nprayers of its friends, it approaches the bar of judgment. Separated\nfrom the body until the day of the Resurrection, when it shall be\nunited to that glorified body, it is not sundered by death from the\nlove of those who have loved it on earth. Gerontius about to be\njudged feels that he must fail\n\n \"And drop from out the universal frame\n Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,\n That utter nothingness\"\n\nfrom which the soul came, and, in its depths of fear, it pleads\nsilently that its friends in Christ may pray for it. The dread of\nannihilation is upon it; it fears \"the great deep\"[1] to which it\ngoes. And, in the agony of its rending from the beloved body, it\nthinks--for it can no longer speak--of the horror of nothingness. All\nits physical supports are gone. Its eyes are darkening and glazing;\nits feet motionless and cold; its arms and hands rigid. To those in\nthe sick-room the body once so beautiful,\n\n \"from the graced decorum of the hair\n Ev'n to the tingling sweet\n Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet,\"[2]\n\nis now white as white marble and as lifeless. But the soul is not\ndead, though the earthly parts of the body appear to be, and it\nhears the prayers of the Church for the dying as the supreme moment\nof its departure from the body is at hand. Some of these prayers,\ntranslated from the Latin, the author puts into the mouths of the\nassistants. They have all the refreshing strength that the Church\ngives; they represent the supplication of millions of devout souls\nbound to this dying brother in the communion of saints. The soul\ngains new strength from these prayers; it arouses itself; sees God\nthrough the ruin of the world, and wills to be wholly His. The\nassistants by the bedside redouble their supplications in the sacred\nwords of the Litany for the Dying, which Cardinal Newman again\ninterprets in English verse, though the Litany is in the Latin\ntongue. Again, the soul gains strength for a moment, and calls, in\nthe universal speech of the Church, for strength, and that, \"out of\nthe depths,\"[3] the holy God might save it. Then it uses its will to\nbelieve, and within itself asserts the creed of the Church, which is\nmusically interpreted by the poet:\n\n \"Firmly I believe and truly\n God is Three, and God is One,\n And I next acknowledge duly\n Manhood taken by the Son.\"\n\nThe moment of agony, the moment of the realization of the soul that\nit is alone, bereft of its support, is terrible but short. In the\n\"Inferno\" of Dante, with all its objective horrors, there are no\nlines so terrible as these, which show the spirit naked, wild with\nhorror and dismay:\n\n \"And worse and worse,\n Some bodily form of ill\n Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse\n Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs and flaps\n Its hideous wings.\"\n\nWe can imagine the scene in the room in which Gerontius is dying. The\npriest, in his surplice and violet stole, has sprinkled the chamber\nand the persons present with holy water, using the form of the cross,\nand has said the _Asperges_:\n\n\"Thou shall sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: Thou\nshalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.\"\n\nGerontius has kissed the crucifix, and it is still before him. In the\nglow of the lighted candle the \"Litany for the Dying\" is recited by\nthe priest and the \"assistants,\" that is to say, all in the room who\nwill pray. The passing of the soul may not have occupied a second, as\nwe reckon time, and yet, as \"The Dream of Gerontius\" suggests, the\nsoul, sensitive and vital, may live through what might seem to be a\nhundred years. As soon as it appears that the soul has departed, the\npriest says:\n\n\"Subvenite, Sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli Domini, Suscipientes animam\nejus, Offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi.\"[4]\n\nThis prayer dwells last in the ears of Gerontius. He has slept for a\nmoment, refreshed by the Church, and he awakes to find himself free.\n\n \"I had a dream; yes: some one softly said\n 'He's gone,' and then a sigh went round the room,\n And then I surely heard a priestly voice\n Cry 'Subvenite,' and they knelt in prayer.\"[5]\n\nThe soul, borne forward on its way to the Judge, hears the song of\nits Guardian Angel, whose work is done. As the soul proceeds, the\nvoices of the demons are heard; they express the pride of those who\ndefy God. They cry out:\n\n \"Virtue and vice,\n A knave's pretence,\n 'Tis all the same.\"\n\nThe soul wonders why it cannot move hand or foot, and the angel says:\n\n \"Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts\n Correlative,--long habit cozens thee,--\n Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move.\"\n\nSo infinitesimal has the time been since the soul left the body that\nthe \"Subvenite\" is not yet finished when the soul is at the very\nthrone of Judgment:\n\n \"I hear the voices that I left on earth.\"\n\nThe angel answers:\n\n \"It is the voice of friends around thy bed\n Who say the 'Subvenite' with the priest.\"\n\nThe angel of the Agony supplicates for the soul, as for its brother,\nand then the eager spirit darts forward alone to the feet of God.\nGerontius is judged; he passes lovingly to Purgatory. His Guardian\nAngel says:\n\n \"And ye great powers,\n Angels of Purgatory, receive from me\n My charge, a precious soul, until the day\n When, from all bond and forfeiture released,\n I shall reclaim it for the courts of light.\"\n\nWaiting until he shall enter into the full glory of the Lord,\nGerontius is left by the poet. This soul knows now what it did not\nknow on earth,--what the real happiness of Heaven is; \"it measures\nthe distance which separates itself from this happiness. It\nunderstands how infinite this distance is, through its own fault. It\nsuffers terribly. Its sorrow grows with its love, as it loves God\nmore and more with all the fibres of its being; it is drawn by vital\nand mighty bonds towards the object of its love, but each bond is\nbroken by the weight of its faults, which like a mass of lead hold it\ndown.\"[6]\n\nThere can be no question as to the correspondence of the teaching of\nCardinal Newman with the theology of the Catholic Church. Dante is\nput by Raphael, in the famous picture, the Disput\u2021, among the Doctors\nof the Church, and the author of \"The Dream of Gerontius\" would have\nmerited a similar honor even if he had never been created[7] a\nCardinal.\n\nFor advanced students interested in the study of literature a\ncomparative reading of \"The Dream of Gerontius\" with the \"Purgatorio\"\nof Dante, Book III, Milton's \"Paradise Lost,\" Rossetti's \"The Blessed\nDamosel,\" and Tennyson's \"In Memoriam\" would be very interesting and\nprofitable, provided this is done always with reference to the exact\nteaching of the Church. For exalted purity, for terseness and beauty\nof expression, for musical cadences, \"The Dream of Gerontius\" stands\nfirst among the few great poems that depict the life after death. \"In\nMemoriam\" is made up of human yearnings, of faith, of doubt. It never\npasses beyond \"the bar\" of death. Milton's \"Paradise\" is one of\nangels rather than men, and Rossetti's poem is only a reflection of\nearth. In Dante's \"Purgatorio\" the splendor seems to be so great that\nthe appeal to the individual heart is lost, but the oftener we read\n\"The Dream of Gerontius,\" the more its power and beauty and peace\ngrow upon us.\n\nThe story of General Charles George Gordon, \"Chinese Gordon,\" one of\nthe heroes of the nineteenth century, has passed into history, and\nevery enthusiastic boy or girl ought to know it by heart. Gordon was\nthe type of the valiant soldier who carried the love and fear of God\neverywhere. He, besieged by pagan hordes, died, in 1884, the death of\na martyr to duty. This man was only one of those who found\nconsolation in \"The Dream of Gerontius\" at the very hour of death.\nGeneral Gordon's copy of the poem--a small duodecimo--was presented\nto the late Mr. Frank Power, correspondent of the London _Times_. The\nlatter sent it home to his sister in Dublin. Deep pencil-marks had\nbeen drawn under lines all bearing on death and prayer. For instance:\n\"Pray for me, O my friends\"; \"'Tis death, O loving friends, your\nprayers,--'tis he\"; \"So pray for me, my friends, who have not\nstrength to pray\"; \"Use well the interval\"; \"Prepare to meet thy\nGod\"; \"Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled.\" Later Power met\nthe fate of a hero. The last words that Gordon underlined before he\ngave him the book were:\n\n \"Farewell, but not forever, brother dear;\n Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow.\"\n\nThe metre in \"The Dream of Gerontius\" changes with the thought, and\nit is always appropriate to it. The solemn movement of the opening\nlines gives the typical music, which is varied lyrically. As an\nexample of exquisite musical variety on a firm basis of unity the\npoem is admirable. The level of \"Lead, Kindly Light\" is reached many\ntimes in the expression of the highest faith and love, and in musical\nquality the famous hymn is even surpassed by\n\n \"Take me away, and in the lowest deep\n There let me be.\"\n\nWhy Cardinal Newman should have presented the experience of a soul\nafter death as a \"dream\" we can imagine from his habitual caution in\ndealing with all subjects of importance. He has the boldness of\nneither Dante nor Milton, and he will not present the poetical\nexperience of a man, at such a vitally sacred moment, as an actual\nfact; he is too reverential for that, and he calls it a \"Dream.\" In a\nletter written in answer to an inquiry as to the meaning of the lines\nin \"The Pillar of the Cloud,\"\n\n \"And with the morn those angel faces smile\n Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile,\"--\n\nhe says, quoting Keble, that poets are \"not bound to be critics or to\ngive a sense to what they had written,\"[8] and he adds that \"there\nmust be a statute of limitations, or it would be quite a tyranny, if\nin an art which is the expression not of truth but of imagination and\nsentiment, one were obliged to stand an examination on the transient\nstate of mind which came upon one when homesick, or seasick, or in\nany other way sensitive or excited.\"\n\nIt is well to take a great poem like this without too much inquiry or\nanalysis. If the author's intention is not evident in his poem,\neither he has failed to be clear, or he is consciously obscure, or we\nare incapable of appreciating his work. The first and second defects\ndo not appear in \"The Dream of Gerontius.\" The third, let us trust,\ndoes not exist in us. The notes, few in number, are intended to\nexplain only what is not obvious.\n\nIn his \"Recollections\" Aubrey De Vere says: \"'The Dream of\nGerontius,' as Newman informed me, owed its preservation to an\naccident. He had written it on a sudden impulse, put it aside and\nforgotten it. The editor of a magazine\"--it appeared in _The Month_,\nof London, 1865, in two parts--\"wrote to him asking for a\ncontribution. He looked into all his pigeon-holes and found nothing\ntheological; but, in answering his correspondent, he added that he\nhad come upon some verses which, if, as editor, he cared to have,\nwere at his command. The wise editor did care, and they were\npublished at once.\"\n\nR. H. Hutton, writing of Cardinal Newman, speaks in this way of \"The\nDream of Gerontius\": \"Before the Vatican disputes and shortly after\nthe controversy with Canon Kingsley, Newman had written a poem of\nwhich he himself thought so little that it was, as I have heard,\nconsigned or doomed to the waste-basket.... Some friend who had an\neye for true poetry rescued it, and was the means, therefore, of\npreserving to the world one of the most unique and original poems of\nthe present century, as well as that one of all of them which is, in\nevery sense, the least in sympathy with the temper of the present\ncentury.... None of his writings engraves more vividly on his readers\nthe significance of the intensely practical convictions which shaped\nhis career. And especially it impresses on us one of the great\nsecrets of his influence. For Newman has been a sign to this\ngeneration that unless there is a great deal of the loneliness of\ndeath in life, there can hardly be much of the higher equanimity of\nlife in death. To my mind 'The Dream of Gerontius' is the poem of a\nman to whom the vision of the Christian revelation has at all times\nbeen more real, more potent to influence action, and more powerful to\npreoccupy the imagination than all worldly interests put together.\"\n(R. H. Hutton, \"Cardinal Newman.\")\n\nThe song of the soul in \"The Dream of Gerontius\" has sometimes been\ncompared with \"The Pillar of the Cloud\"--a sacred lyric which is a\nhousehold canticle wherever the English language is spoken. It is\noften misquoted, a fourth stanza having been added to it. This is the\nauthorized version:\n\n \"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom\n Lead Thou me on!\n The night is dark, and I am far from home--\n Lead Thou me on!\n Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see\n The distant scene--one step enough for me.\n\n \"I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou\n Shouldst lead me on.\n I loved to choose my path, but now\n Lead Thou me on.\n I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,\n Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.\n\n \"So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still\n Will lead me on,\n O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent till\n The night is gone;\n And with the morn those angel faces smile\n Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.\"\n\nIn the \"Apologia Pro Vita Sua\" Dr. Newman wrote: \"We\"--Mr. Hurrell\nFroude, brother of the historian James Anthony Froude, being the\nother person--\"set out in December 1832. It was during this\nexpedition that my verses which are in the 'Apostolica' were\nwritten--a few, indeed, before it, but not more than one or two of\nthem after it. At Whitechurch, while waiting for the down mail to\nFalmouth, I wrote the verses about 'My Guardian Angel' which begin\nwith these words:\n\n \"'Are these the tracks of some unearthly friend?'\"\n\nIt must be remembered that John Henry Newman had not yet entered the\nCatholic Church. It is strange that he should at this time have held\nthe belief in a ministering spirit which is so marked in \"The Dream\nof Gerontius.\"\n\nIn the sextette of this sonnet he says:\n\n \"Were I Christ's own, then fitly might I call\n That vision real; for to the thoughtful mind\n That walks with Him He half reveals His face;\n But when on earth-stained souls such tokens fall,\n These dare not claim as theirs what there they find,\n Yet, not all hopeless, eye His boundless grace.\"\n\nThis vision, he says, \"which haunted me,--the vision is more or less\nbrought out in the whole series of compositions.\" \"Gerontius\" itself\nis more a \"vision\" than a \"dream.\"\n\n\"The Pillar of the Cloud\" was written in an orange-boat. \"We were\nbecalmed a whole week in the Straits of Bonifaccio. Then it was,\" he\nsays in the \"Apologia\"--the finest model of modern English prose\nextant--\"that I wrote 'Lead, Kindly Light,' which has since become\nwell known. I was writing verses the whole time of my passage.\"\n\nThe \"vision\" of which he speaks he saw everywhere, and all his poems\nseem, in one way or other, to contain hints of the great poem to\ncome; for there can be no doubt that \"The Dream of Gerontius\" is the\nculmination of his poetical moods. One cannot open any of his prose\nworks without finding allusions to these eternal truths made so clear\nthrough the processes of the soul of a normal old man,--our young\nreaders will please look up the derivation of Gerontius,[9] which is\nfrom the Greek,--but it is in his poems that we discover easily the\ngerms of his poetical masterpiece. Even in the poems he loved we note\nthe constant dwelling on the main theme of \"The Dream\"--Eternity. In\n1889 Cardinal Newman was very ill. During his convalescence he asked\nthat Faber's \"Eternal Years\"[A] should be sung to him with musical\naccompaniment. He said that he would like to hear it when he came to\ndie. It is a poem of sixteen stanzas, to be found in Faber's \"Hymns.\"\nIt begins:\n\n \"How shalt thou bear the cross that now\n So dread a weight appears?\n Keep quietly to God, and think\n Upon the eternal years.\n\n Austerity is little help,\n Although it sometimes cheers;\n Thine oil of gladness is the thought\n Of the eternal years.\"\n\n\"Novissima hora est!\" Gerontius exclaims, \"and I fain would sleep.\"\nHe is thinking of the eternal hours and years in this last hour on\nearth.\n\nAt sea, in June, 1833, Newman had written some verses called \"Hora\nNovissima\":\n\n \"Whene'er goes forth Thy dread command,\n And my last hour is nigh,\n Lord, grant me in a Christian land,\n As I was born, to die.\n\n \"I pray not, Lord, that friends may be,\n Or kindred, standing by,--\n Choice blessing! which I leave to Thee\n To grant me or deny.\n\n \"But let my falling limbs beneath\n My Mother's smile recline,\n And prayers sustain my laboring breath\n From out her sacred shrine.\n\n \"And let the cross beside my bed\n In its dread presence rest;\n And let the absolving words be said\n To ease a laden breast.\n\n \"Thou, Lord, where'er we lie, canst aid;\n But He who taught His own\n To live as one, will not upbraid\n The dread to die alone.\"\n\nThe death of Gerontius was Newman's ideal Christian death, and\nGerontius does not die alone; he is upborne, refreshed by the prayers\nof his friends. Of Newman's sacred songs, \"The Pillar of the Cloud\"\nis, as we know, put first by some critics. And yet for musical\ndiction, for sweetness and all the beauty of artistic technique, the\nsong of the soul in \"The Dream\" equals if not surpasses it.\n\n \"Take me away, and in the lowest deep,\n There let me be,\n And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,\n Told out for me.\"\n\nIn \"Verses on Various Occasions\" there is the picture of the resigned\nsouls expecting the Blessed Vision. \"Waiting for the Morning\" was\nwritten at Oxford, 1835. It begins:\n\n \"They are at rest;\n We may not stir the heaven of their repose\n With loud-voiced grief, or passionate request,\n Or selfish plaints for those\n Who in the mountain grots of Eden lie,\n And hear the fourfold river as it passes by.\"\n\nBy \"Eden\" Newman symbolized the paradise--the resting-place of\nsouls--of the fourfold rivers. Here they patiently abide,\n\n \"And soothing sounds\n Blend with the neighboring waters as they glide;\n Posted along the haunted garden's bounds\n Angelic forms abide,\n Echoing as words of watch, o'er lawn and grove,\n The verses of that hymn which seraphs chant above.\"\n\nThe fulness of higher meditation and knowledge is in the triumphant\nsong of the Soul, but \"Waiting for the Morning\" contains its\nsuggestion, just as \"The Lady of Shalott\" by Lord Tennyson contains\nthe germ of the exquisite \"Elaine.\"\n\nThe dedication of \"The Dream of Gerontius\" reads, in English: \"To the\nMost Beloved Brother, John Joseph Gordon, Priest of the Order of St.\nPhilip de Neri, whose soul is in the Place of Refreshment.[10] All\nSouls' Day, 1865.\"\n\nThe Rev. John Joseph Gordon, of the Oratory, was very dear to Newman,\nand his death was a great blow to him. But of all the Oratorians,\nthe Cardinal especially loved Father Ambrose St. John, whose name he\naccentuates on the last page of the \"Apologia.\" Father St. John, who\nwas of the Gordon family, died in 1875, and Newman suffered what he\nheld to be his saddest bereavement. Ambrose St. John had been with\nhim at Littlemore. Writing to Mr. Dering of the death of Father\nAmbrose St. John, he said: \"I never had so great a loss. He had been\nmy life under God for twenty-two years.\" The dread of dying alone and\nthe deep affection for friends--an affection that reaches the throne\nof God by prayer--tinge the whole structure of \"The Dream.\" They are\npart of Newman himself.\n\nCardinal Newman died at Edgbaston Oratory, August 11, 1890; he was\nburied, at his own request, in the grave with Father Ambrose St.\nJohn. \"'The Dream of Gerontius' was composed in great grief after the\ndeath of a dear friend.\"\n\nA careful study of \"The Dream of Gerontius\" will show how musical\nit is, and how delicately the music of the verse changes with the\nthemes. The form of poetry, as we know, approaches music. If a poem\nis not musical in expression, its metres fail of producing the\neffect they are intended to produce. So musical is \"The Dream of\nGerontius\" and so capable of being treated by the musicians, that\nvarious composers suggested the making of an oratorio of it. Dr.\nElgar has done it. \"An Ursuline,\" in _The Catholic World_, for\nJune, 1903, says: \"Dr. Elgar, when a child, sat Sunday after\nSunday in the organ-loft of St. George's Roman Catholic Church,\nWorcester, England, where his father had been organist for the long\nperiod of thirty-seven years. Subtly the spirit of the grand old\nchurch music was instilled into the boy.\" Of \"The Dream\" Dr. Elgar\nsaid: \"The poem has been soaking in my mind for at least eight\nyears. All that time I had been gradually assimilating the thoughts\nof the author into my musical promptings.\" In 1889 a copy of the\npoem, with the markings made by General Gordon, was presented to\nDr. Elgar as a wedding gift. The markings of the heroic and devout\nGordon especially interested him. The reading of this little book\nhelped to make Dr. Elgar's fame, which is based solely on his\nmasterpiece, the oratorio performed in London on June 6, 1903, in\nWestminster Cathedral. Richard Strauss is looked on by musicians as\nthe master of what is called \"tone-color\"--a perfect harmony\nbetween the tone of the instrument and the music arranged for it.\nBut the German and English critics declare that in \"The Dream of\nGerontius\" Dr. Elgar has surpassed Richard Strauss. \"The Demons'\nChorus,\" says The _Pall Mall Gazette_, \"may be regarded as one of\nthe last words of musical audacity.\" For the study of the music we\nsuggest Dr. Jaeger's Analysis, printed by Novello in London and New\nYork. Mr. Theodore Thomas, speaking of Dr. Elgar's \"Dream of\nGerontius,\" said that it is the most important oratorio of recent\ntimes, not excepting Brahms' Requiem. \"'Gerontius,'\" he added, \"is\na lofty work, and, from a technical point of view, more masterly\nthan Brahms ever dreamed of. It is by far the most important and\nsatisfying modern work written for voices and orchestra.\"\n\nIt is understood that Cardinal Newman himself suggested that his\npoem should be set to music. The delicacy of his ear as to sounds\nis shown by the changes of the verse-music,--which is made up of\naccent, pause, and rhythm,--to fit the varying feeling of the work.\nIf the student will scan the lines and reduce them to musical\nexpression,--leaving out, of course, the quality of pitch, he can\neasily corroborate this.\n\n[Illustration: Jesu, Maria, I am near to death, And Thou art calling\nme.]\n\nThis is in two-beat rhythm:\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThe first syllable of \"Jesu\" is the anacrusis; the measure of the\nmetre begins with the first accent. Whether this system of\nverse-notation or that of the usual scansion be followed, the meaning\nof the changing forms will be made plain. The system of\nverse-notation will be found more satisfactory in the metrical study\nof the poem. The second form of primary rhythm--that based on three\nbeats in the measure--is effectively used. We find it in the Song of\nthe Demons:\n\n[Illustration:\n\n Low-born clods\n Of brute earth,\n They aspire,--]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n[1] From Merlin's song in Tennyson's \"Coming of Arthur.\"\n\n[2] Coventry Patmore's \"Ode to the Body.\"\n\n[3] From the Psalm, \"De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.\"--\"Out of\nthe depths have I cried to Thee, O Lord.\"\n\n[4] \"Come to his assistance, ye saints of God; come forth to meet\nhim, ye angels of the Lord: Receiving his soul: Offering it in the\nsight of the Most High.\"\n\n[5] This passage in \"The Dream of Gerontius\" calls to mind Tennyson's\nlines in \"The Princess\":\n\n \"Ah, sad and strange, as in dark summer dawns\n The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds\n To dying ears, when unto dying eyes\n The casement slowly grows a glimmering square.\"\n\n[6] La Psychologie du Purgatoire (The Psychology of Purgatory): Abb\u00c8\nChollet, Doctor of Theology at Lille.\n\n[7] The Holy Father \"creates\" Cardinals, he does not appoint them.\n\n[8] Catholic Life and Letters by Cardinal Newman; with Notes on the\nOxford Movement and its Men:--John Oldcastle (Mr. Wilfred Meynell).\nTo which work the editor is under obligation for important parts of\nthe appended chronology.\n\n[9] [Greek: ger\u00d9n--ontos.]\n\n[10] The word \"refrigerium\" was used for \"refreshment,\" \"rest\" in the\nepitaphs of the early Latin Christians.\n\n\n\n\nJOHN HENRY NEWMAN\n\n\nBorn in the city of London, February 21, 1801, son of Mr. John Newman\n(of the banking firm of Ramsbottom, Newman & Co.) and of Jemima\nFourdrinier, his wife.\n\nWent at an early age to Dr. Nicholas's school at Ealing, to the head\nof which he rapidly rose. Thence to Trinity College, Oxford,\ngraduating in 1820.\n\nIn 1823 was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel.\n\nIn 1824 took Anglican orders and became curate of St. Clements,\nOxford.\n\nIn 1828 was appointed vicar of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, with the\noutlying chaplaincy of Littlemore.\n\nIn 1832 finished _History of the Arians_ and went abroad. Made\nacquaintance with Dr. Wiseman in Rome; seized with fever in Sicily,\nbut said, \"I shall not die--I have a work to do in England\";\nreturning homewards in an orange-boat bound for Marseilles, and\nwithin sight of Garibaldi's home at Caprera, wrote \"Lead, Kindly\nLight.\"\n\nOn July 13, 1833, the Sunday after his return home, the Oxford\nmovement was begun by Keble's sermon on National Apostasy. The issue\nof _Tracts for the Times_ immediately followed; and in 1843 Mr.\nNewman published a volume of _Parochial Sermons_, to be followed by\n_University Sermons_ and _Sermons on Holy Days_.\n\nIn 1841 the Vice-Chancellor and heads of houses at Oxford censured\nMr. Newman's Tract XC.\n\nIn 1843 he resigned St. Mary's.\n\nOn October 9, 1845, was received into the Catholic Church at\nLittlemore by Father Dominic.\n\nOn November 1, 1845, was confirmed at Oscott by Cardinal Wiseman.\n\nOn October 28, 1846, arrived in Rome, and, after a short period of\nstudy, was ordained priest.\n\nOn Christmas Eve, 1847, he returned to England from Rome, to found\nthe community of St. Philip de Neri.\n\nIn January, 1849, part of the Oratorian Community settled in\nBirmingham.\n\nIn 1849 took up temporary residence at Bilston, to nurse the poor\nduring a visitation of cholera.\n\nIn April, 1849, founded the London Oratory, with Father Faber as\nrector.\n\nOn June 21, 1852, the case of Achilli against Dr. Newman came on for\ntrial before Lord Campbell, and, after several days' duration,\nresulted in a verdict of \"guilty,\" Dr. Newman being unjustly\nsentenced to a fine and mulcted in enormous costs. The Rev. John\nJoseph Gordon, to whom \"The Dream of Gerontius\" is dedicated, was of\ngreat assistance to Newman at this time.\n\nIn 1854 went to Dublin as rector of the newly founded Irish Catholic\nUniversity, but resigned that post in 1858, and subsequently\nestablished a boys' school at Birmingham.\n\nIn 1864 Charles Kingsley made charges of untruthfulness against the\nCatholic clergy, which led to the writing of the _Apologia Pro Vita\nSua_.\n\nIn December, 1877, was elected an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College,\nOxford.\n\nIn 1865 he printed \"The Dream of Gerontius.\"\n\nIn 1879 created Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church by Leo XIII.\n\nOn Monday, August 11, 1890, died at the Oratory, Edgbaston,\nBirmingham, England.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DREAM OF GERONTIUS\n\n\n\u00df1\n\nGERONTIUS[11]\n\n Jesu, Maria--I am near to death,[12]\n And Thou art calling me; I know it now--\n Not by the token of this faltering breath,\n This chill at heart, this dampness on my brow,\n (Jesu, have mercy! Mary, pray for me!)--\n 'Tis this new feeling, never felt before,\n (Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)\n That I am going, that I am no more.\n 'Tis this strange innermost abandonment,\n (Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,) 10\n This emptying out of each constituent\n And natural force, by which I come to be.\n Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant\n Is knocking his dire summons at my door,\n The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt,\n Has never, never come to me before;\n 'Tis death,--O loving friends, your prayers!--'tis he!...\n As though my very being had given way,\n As though I was no more a substance now,\n And could fall back on nought to be my stay, 20\n (Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole Refuge, Thou,)\n And turn no whither, but must needs decay\n And drop from out the universal frame\n Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss,\n That utter nothingness, of which I came:\n This is it that has come to pass in me;\n O horror! this it is, my dearest, this;\n So pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray.\n\nASSISTANTS\n\n Kyrie ele\u00d4son, Christe ele\u00d4son, Kyrie ele\u00d4son.[13]\n Holy Mary, pray for him. 30\n All holy Angels, pray for him.\n Choirs of the righteous, pray for him.\n Holy Abraham, pray for him.\n St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him.\n St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. John,\n All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him.\n All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him.\n All holy Innocents, pray for him.\n All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors,\n All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins, 40\n All ye Saints of God, pray for him.\n\nGERONTIUS\n\n Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man;[14]\n And through such waning span\n Of life and thought as still has to be trod,\n Prepare to meet thy God.\n And while the storm of that bewilderment\n Is for a season spent,\n And, ere afresh the ruin on thee fall,\n Use well the interval.\n\nASSISTANTS\n\n Be merciful, be gracious; spare him, Lord.[15] 50\n Be merciful, be gracious; Lord, deliver him.\n From the sins that are past;\n From Thy frown and Thine ire;\n From the perils of dying;\n From any complying\n With sin, or denying\n His God, or relying\n On self, at the last;\n From the nethermost fire\n From all that is evil; 60\n From power of the devil;\n Thy servant deliver,\n For once and for ever.\n\n By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross,\n Rescue him from endless loss;\n By Thy death and burial,\n Save him from a final fall;\n By Thy rising from the tomb,\n By Thy mounting up above,\n By the Spirit's gracious love, 70\n Save him in the day of doom.\n\nGERONTIUS\n\n Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,[16]\n De profundis oro te,\n Miserere, Judex meus,\n Parce mihi, Domine.[17]\n Firmly I believe and truly\n God is Three, and God is One;\n And I next acknowledge duly\n Manhood taken by the Son.\n And I trust and hope most fully 80\n In that Manhood crucified;\n And each thought and deed unruly\n Do to death, as He has died.\n Simply to His grace and wholly\n Light and life and strength belong,\n And I love, supremely, solely,\n Him the holy, Him the strong.\n Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,\n De profundis oro te,\n Miserere, Judex meus, 90\n Parce mihi, Domine.\n And I hold in veneration,\n For the love of Him alone,\n Holy Church, as His creation,\n And her teachings, as His own.\n And I take with joy whatever\n Now besets me, pain or fear,\n And with a strong will I sever\n All the ties which bind me here.\n Adoration aye be given 100\n With and through the angelic host,\n To the God of earth and heaven,\n Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.\n Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,\n De profundis oro te,\n Miserere, Judex meus,\n Mortis in discrimine.[18]\n\n I can no more; for now it comes again,\n That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,\n That masterful negation and collapse 110\n\n Of all that makes me man; as though I bent\n Over the dizzy brink\n Of some sheer infinite descent;\n Or worse, as though\n Down, down for ever I was falling through\n The solid framework of created things,\n And needs must sink and sink\n Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still,\n A fierce and restless fright begins to fill\n The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse, 120\n Some bodily form of ill\n Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse\n Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps\n Its hideous wings,\n And makes me wild with horror and dismay.\n O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!\n Some angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee\n In Thine own agony....\n Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me.\n Mary, pray for me. 130\n\nASSISTANTS\n\n Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour,[19]\n As of old so many by Thy gracious power:--(Amen.)\n Enoch and Elias from the common doom; (Amen.)\n Noe from the waters in a saving home; (Amen.)\n Abraham from th' abounding guilt of Heathenesse; (Amen.)\n Job from all his multiform and fell distress; (Amen.)\n Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to slay; (Amen.)\n Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment-day; (Amen.)\n Moses from the land of bondage and despair; (Amen.)\n Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair; (Amen.) 140\n And the Children Three amid the furnace-flame; (Amen.)\n Chaste Susanna from the slander and the shame; (Amen.)\n David from Golia and the wrath of Saul; (Amen.)\n And the two Apostles from their prison-thrall; (Amen.)\n Thecla from her torments; (Amen.)\n --so, to show Thy power,\n Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour.\n\nGERONTIUS\n\n Novissima hora est;[20] and I fain would sleep,\n The pain has wearied me.... Into Thy hands,\n O Lord, into Thy hands....\n\nTHE PRIEST\n\n Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo![21] 150\n Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul!\n Go from this world! Go, in the name of God,\n The omnipotent Father, who created thee!\n Go, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,\n Son of the living God, who bled for thee!\n Go, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, who\n Hath been poured out on thee! Go, in the name\n Of Angels and Archangels; in the name\n Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name\n Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the name 160\n Of Cherubim and Seraphim, go forth!\n Go, in the name of Patriarchs and Prophets;\n And of Apostles and Evangelists,\n Of Martyrs and Confessors; in the name\n Of holy Monks and Hermits; in the name\n Of holy Virgins; and all Saints of God,\n Both men and women, go! Go on thy course;\n And may thy place to-day be found in peace,\n And may thy dwelling be the Holy Mount\n Of Sion:--in the Name of Christ, our Lord. 170\n\n\n\u00df2\n\nSOUL OF GERONTIUS\n\n I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed.[22]\n A strange refreshment: for I feel in me\n An inexpressive lightness, and a sense\n Of freedom, as I were at length myself,\n And ne'er had been before. How still it is!\n I hear no more the busy beat of time,\n No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;\n Nor does one moment differ from the next.\n I had a dream; yes:--some one softly said\n \"He's gone\"; and then a sigh went round the room. 180\n And then I surely heard a priestly voice\n Cry \"Subvenite\"; and they knelt in prayer.\n I seem to hear him still; but thin and low,\n And fainter and more faint the accents come,\n As at an ever-widening interval.\n Ah! whence is this? What is this severance?\n This silence pours a solitariness\n Into the very essence of my soul;\n And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,\n Hath something too of sternness and of pain, 190\n For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring\n By a strange introversion, and perforce\n I now begin to feed upon myself,\n Because I have nought else to feed upon.\n\n Am I alive or dead? I am not dead,\n But in the body still; for I possess\n A sort of confidence which clings to me,\n That each particular organ holds its place\n As heretofore, combining with the rest\n Into one symmetry, that wraps me round, 200\n And makes me man; and surely I could move,\n Did I but will it, every part of me.\n And yet I cannot to my sense bring home,\n By very trial, that I have the power.\n 'Tis strange; I cannot stir a hand or foot,\n I cannot make my fingers or my lips\n By mutual pressure witness each to each,\n Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke\n Assure myself I have a body still.\n Nor do I know my very attitude, 210\n Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.\n\n So much I know, not knowing how I know,\n That the vast universe, where I have dwelt,\n Is quitting me, or I am quitting it.\n Or I or it is rushing on the wings\n Of light or lightning on an onward course,\n And we e'en now are million miles apart.\n Yet ... is this peremptory severance\n Wrought out in lengthening measurements of space,\n Which grow and multiply by speed and time? 220\n Or am I traversing infinity\n By endless subdivision, hurrying back\n From finite towards infinitesimal,\n Thus dying out of the expansive world?\n\n Another marvel:[23] someone has me fast\n Within his ample palm; 'tis not a grasp\n Such as they use on earth, but all around\n Over the surface of my subtle being,\n As though I were a sphere, and capable\n To be accosted thus, a uniform 230\n And gentle pressure tells me I am not\n Self-moving, but borne forward on my way.\n And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth\n I cannot of that music rightly say\n Whether I hear or touch or taste the tones.\n Oh what a heart-subduing melody!\n\nANGEL\n\n My work is done,[24]\n My task is o'er,\n And so I come,\n Taking it home, 240\n For the crown is won,\n Alleluia.\n For evermore.\n My Father gave\n In charge to me\n This child of earth\n E'en from its birth,\n To serve and save,\n Alleluia,\n And saved is he. 250\n This child of clay\n To me was given,\n To rear and train\n By sorrow and pain\n In the narrow way,\n Alleluia,\n From earth to heaven.\n\nSOUL\n\n It is a member of that family\n Of wondrous beings, who, ere the worlds were made,\n Millions of ages back, have stood around 260\n The throne of God:--he never has known sin;\n But through those cycles all but infinite,\n Has had a strong and pure celestial life,\n And born to gaze on th' unveiled face of God\n And drank from the eternal Fount of truth,\n And served Him with a keen ecstatic love.\n Hark! he begins again.\n\nANGEL\n\n O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height,\n But most in man, how wonderful Thou art!\n With what a love, what soft persuasive might 270\n Victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart\n Thy tale complete of saints Thou dost provide\n To fill the thrones which angels lost through pride!\n\n He lay a grovelling babe upon the ground,\n Polluted in the blood of his first sire,\n With his whole essence shattered and unsound,\n And, coiled around his heart, a demon dire,\n Which was not of his nature, but had skill\n To bind and form his opening mind to ill.\n\n Then was I sent from heaven to set right 280\n The balance in his soul of truth and sin,\n And I have waged a long relentless fight,\n Resolved that death-environed spirit to win,\n Which from its fallen state, when all was lost,\n Had been repurchased at so dread a cost.\n\n Oh what a shifting parti-coloured scene\n Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay,\n Of recklessness and penitence, has been\n The history of that dreary, lifelong fray!\n And oh the grace to nerve him and to lead, 290\n How patient, prompt, and lavish at his need!\n\n O man, strange composite of heaven and earth![25]\n Majesty dwarfed to baseness! fragrant flower\n Running to poisonous seed! and seeming worth\n Cloking corruption! weakness mastering power!\n Who never art so near to crime and shame,\n As when thou hast achieved some deed of name;--\n How should ethereal natures comprehend\n A thing made up of spirit and of clay,\n Were we not tasked to nurse it and to tend, 300\n Linked one to one throughout its mortal day?\n More than the Seraph in his height of place,\n The Angel-guardian knows and loves the ransomed race.\n\nSOUL\n\n Now know I surely that I am at length\n Out of the body: had I part with earth,\n I never could have drunk those accents in,\n And not have worshipped as a god the voice\n That was so musical; but now I am\n So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed,\n With such a full content, and with a sense 310\n So apprehensive and discriminant,\n As no temptation can intoxicate.\n Nor have I even terror at the thought\n That I am clasped by such a saintliness.\n\nANGEL\n\n All praise to Him, at whose sublime decree\n The last are first, the first become the last;\n By whom the suppliant prisoner is set free,\n By whom proud first-borns from their thrones are cast,\n Who raises Mary to be Queen of heaven,\n While Lucifer is left, condemned and unforgiven. 320\n\n\n\u00df3\n\nSOUL\n\n I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord,\n My Guardian Spirit, all hail!\n\nANGEL\n\n All hail, my child!\n My child and brother, hail! what wouldest thou?\n\nSOUL\n\n I would have nothing but to speak with thee\n For speaking's sake. I wish to hold with thee\n Conscious communion; though I fain would know\n A maze of things, were it but meet to ask,\n And not a curiousness.\n\nANGEL\n\n You cannot now 330\n Cherish a wish which ought not to be wished.\n\nSOUL\n\n Then I will speak. I ever had believed\n That on the moment when the struggling soul\n Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell\n Under the awful Presence of its God,\n There to be judged and sent to its own place.\n What lets me now from going to my Lord?\n\nANGEL\n\n Thou art not let; but with extremest speed\n Art hurrying to the Just and Holy Judge:\n For scarcely art thou disembodied yet. 340\n Divide a moment, as men measure time,\n Into its million-million-millionth part,\n Yet even less than that the interval\n Since thou didst leave the body; and the priest\n Cried \"Subvenite,\"[26] and they fell to prayer;\n Nay, scarcely yet have they begun to pray.\n For spirits and men by different standards mete\n The less and greater in the flow of time.\n By sun and moon, primeval ordinances--\n By stars which rise and set harmoniously-- 350\n By the recurring seasons, and the swing,\n This way and that, of the suspended rod\n Precise and punctual, men divide the hours,\n Equal, continuous, for their common use.\n Not so with us in the immaterial world;\n But intervals in their succession\n Are measured by the living thought alone,\n And grow or wane with its intensity.\n And time is not a common property;\n But what is long is short, and swift is slow, 360\n And near is distant, as received and grasped\n By this mind and by that, and every one\n Is standard of his own chronology.\n And memory lacks its natural resting-points\n Of years, and centuries, and periods.\n It is thy very energy of thought\n Which keeps thee from thy God.\n\nSOUL\n\n Dear Angel, say,\n Why have I now no fear at meeting Him?\n Along my earthly life, the thought of death 370\n And judgment was to me most terrible.\n I had it aye before me, and I saw\n The Judge severe e'en in the crucifix.\n Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled;\n And at this balance of my destiny,\n Now close upon me, I can forward look\n With a serenest joy.\n\nANGEL\n\n It is because\n Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear.\n Thou hast forestalled the agony, and so 380\n For thee the bitterness of death is past.\n Also, because already in thy soul\n The judgment is begun. That day of doom,\n One and the same for the collected world--\n That solemn consummation for all flesh,\n Is, in the case of each, anticipate\n Upon his death; and, as the last great day\n In the particular judgment is rehearsed,\n So now too, ere thou comest to the Throne,\n A presage falls upon thee, as a ray 390\n Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot.\n That calm and joy uprising in thy soul\n Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense,\n And heaven begun.\n\n\n\u00df 4\n\nSOUL\n\n But hark! upon my sense\n Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear,\n Could I be frighted.\n\nANGEL\n\n We are now arrived\n Close on the judgment court; that sullen howl\n Is from the demons who assemble there. 400\n It is the middle region, where of old\n Satan appeared among the sons of God,\n To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job.\n So now his legions throng the vestibule,\n Hungry and wild, to claim their property,\n And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry.\n\nSOUL\n\n How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!\n\nDEMONS\n\n Low-born clods[27]\n Of brute earth,\n They aspire 410\n To become gods,\n By a new birth,\n And an extra grace,\n And a score of merits.\n As if aught\n Could stand in place\n Of the high thought,\n And the glance of fire\n Of the great spirits,\n The powers blest, 420\n The lords by right,\n The primal owners,\n Of the proud dwelling\n And realm of light,--\n Dispossessed,\n Aside thrust,\n Chucked down,\n By the sheer might\n Of a despot's will,\n Of a tyrant's frown. 430\n Who after expelling\n Their hosts, gave,\n Triumphant still,\n And still unjust,\n Each forfeit crown\n To psalm-droners,\n And canting groaners,\n To every slave,\n And pious cheat,\n And crawling knave, 440\n Who licked the dust\n Under his feet.\n\nANGEL\n\n It is the restless panting of their being;\n Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars,\n In a deep hideous purring have their life,\n And an incessant pacing to and fro.\n\nDEMONS\n\n The mind bold\n And independent,\n The purpose free,\n So we are told, 450\n Must not think\n To have the ascendant.\n What's a saint?\n One whose breath\n Doth the air taint\n Before his death;\n A bundle of bones,\n Which fools adore,\n Ha! ha!\n When life is o'er, 460\n Which rattle and stink,\n E'en in the flesh.\n We cry his pardon!\n No flesh hath he;\n Ha! ha!\n For it hath died,\n 'Tis crucified\n Day by day,\n Afresh, afresh,\n Ha! ha! 470\n That holy clay,\n Ha! ha!\n This gains guerdon,\n So priestlings prate,\n Ha! ha!\n Before the Judge,\n And pleads and atones\n For spite and grudge,\n And bigot mood,\n And envy and hate, 480\n And greed of blood.\n\nSOUL\n\n How impotent they are! and yet on earth\n They have repute for wondrous power and skill;\n And books describe, how that the very face\n Of the Evil One, if seen, would have a force\n Even to freeze the blood, and choke the life\n Of him who saw it.\n\nANGEL\n\n In thy trial-state\n Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home,\n Connatural, who with the powers of hell 490\n Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys,\n And to that deadliest foe unlocked thy heart.\n And therefore is it, in respect to man,\n Those fallen ones show so majestical.\n But, when some child of grace, angel or saint,\n Pure and upright in his integrity\n Of nature, meets the demons on their raid,\n They scud away as cowards from the fight.\n Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell,\n Not yet disburdened of mortality, 500\n Mocked at their threats and warlike overtures;\n Or, dying, when they swarmed, like flies, around,\n Defied them, and departed to his Judge.\n\nDEMONS\n\n Virtue and vice,\n A knave's pretence.\n 'Tis all the same;\n Ha! ha!\n Dread of hell-fire,\n Of the venomous flame,\n A coward's plea. 510\n Give him his price,\n Saint though he be,\n Ha! ha!\n From shrewd good sense\n He'll slave for hire;\n Ha! ha!\n And does but aspire\n To the heaven above\n With sordid aim,\n And not from love. 520\n Ha! ha!\n\nSOUL\n\n I see not those false spirits; shall I see\n My dearest Master, when I reach His throne;\n Or hear, at least, His awful judgment-word\n With personal intonation, as I now\n Hear thee, not see thee, Angel? Hitherto\n All has been darkness since I left the earth;\n Shall I remain thus sight bereft all through\n My penance time? If so, how comes it then\n That I have hearing still, and taste, and touch, 530\n Yet not a glimmer of that princely sense\n Which binds ideas in one, and makes them live?\n\nANGEL\n\n Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou now;\n Thou livest in a world of signs and types,\n The presentations of most holy truths,\n Living and strong, which now encompass thee.\n A disembodied soul, thou hast by right\n No converse with aught else beside thyself;\n But, lest so stern a solitude should load\n And break thy being, in mercy are vouchsafed 540\n Some lower measures of perception,\n Which seem to thee, as though through channels brought,\n Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are gone.\n And thou art wrapped and swathed around in dreams,\n Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical;\n For the belongings of thy present state,\n Save through such symbols, come not home to thee.\n And thus thou tell'st of space, and time, and size,\n Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical,\n Of fire, and of refreshment after fire; 550\n As (let me use similitude of earth,\n To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask)--\n As ice which blisters may be said to burn.\n Nor hast thou now extension,[28] with its parts\n Correlative,--long habit cozens thee,--\n Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move.\n Hast thou not heard of those, who, after loss\n Of hand or foot, still cried that they had pains\n In hand or foot, as though they had it still?\n So is it now with thee, who hast not lost 560\n Thy hand or foot, but all which made up man;\n So will it be, until the joyous day\n Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain\n All thou hast lost, new-made and glorified.\n How, even now, the consummated Saints\n See God in heaven, I may not explicate.\n Meanwhile let it suffice thee to possess\n Such means of converse as are granted thee,\n Though, till that Beatific Vision thou art blind;\n For e'en thy purgatory, which comes like fire, 570\n Is fire without its light.\n\nSOUL\n\n His will be done!\n I am not worthy e'er to see again\n The face of day; far less His countenance\n Who is the very sun. Nathless, in life,\n When I looked forward to my purgatory,\n It ever was my solace to believe,\n That, ere I plunged amid th' avenging flame,\n I had one sight of Him to strengthen me.\n\nANGEL\n\n Nor rash nor vain is that presentiment; 580\n Yes,--for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord.\n Thus will it be: what time thou art arraigned\n Before the dread tribunal, and thy lot\n Is cast for ever, should it be to sit\n On His right hand among His pure elect,\n Then sight, or that which to the soul is sight,\n As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee,\n And thou shalt see, amid the dark profound,\n Whom thy soul loveth, and would fain approach,--\n One moment; but thou knowest not, my child, 590\n What thou dost ask: that sight of the Most Fair\n Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too.\n\nSOUL\n\n Thou speakest darkly, Angel! and an awe\n Falls on me, and a fear lest I be rash.\n\nANGEL\n\n There was a mortal, who is now above\n In the mid glory: he, when near to die,\n Was given communion with the Crucified,--\n Such, that the Master's very wounds were stamped\n Upon his flesh;[29] and, from the agony 599\n Which thrilled through body and soul in that embrace\n Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love\n Doth burn ere it transform....\n\n\n\u00df5\n\n ... Hark to those sounds!\n They come of tender beings angelical,\n Least and most childlike of the sons of God.\n\nFIRST CHOIR OF ANGELICALS\n\n Praise to the Holiest in the height,[30]\n And in the depth be praise:\n In all His words most wonderful;\n Most sure in all His ways!\n\n To us His elder race He gave 610\n To battle and to win,\n Without the chastisement of pain,\n Without the soil of sin.\n\n The younger son He willed to be\n A marvel in his birth:\n Spirit and flesh his parents were;\n His home was heaven and earth.\n\n The Eternal blessed His child, and armed,\n And sent him hence afar,\n To serve as champion in the field 620\n Of elemental war.\n\n To be His Viceroy in the world\n Of matter, and of sense;\n Upon the frontier, towards the foe,\n A resolute defence.\n\nANGEL\n\n We now have passed the gate, and are within\n The House of Judgment; and whereas on earth\n Temples and palaces are formed of parts\n Costly and rare, but all material,\n So in the world of spirits nought is found, 630\n To mould withal and form into a whole,\n But what is immaterial; and thus\n The smallest portions of this edifice,\n Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair,\n The very pavement is made up of life--\n Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings,\n Who hymn their Maker's praise continually.\n\nSECOND CHOIR OF ANGELICALS\n\n Praise to the Holiest in the height,\n And in the depth be praise:\n In all His words most wonderful; 640\n Most sure in all His ways!\n\n Woe to thee, man! for he was found\n A recreant in the fight;\n And lost his heritage of heaven,\n And fellowship with light.\n\n Above him now the angry sky,\n Around the tempest's din;\n Who once had angels for his friends,\n Had but the brutes for kin.\n\n O man! a savage kindred they; 650\n To flee that monster brood\n He scaled the seaside cave, and clomb\n The giants of the wood.\n\n With now a fear, and now a hope,\n With aids which chance supplied,\n From youth to eld, from sire to son,\n He lived, and toiled, and died.\n\n He dreed[31] his penance age by age;\n And step by step began\n Slowly to doff his savage garb, 660\n And be again a man.\n\n And quickened by the Almighty's breath,\n And chastened by His rod,\n And taught by Angel-visitings,\n At length he sought his God:\n\n And learned to call upon His name,\n And in His faith create\n A household and a fatherland,\n A city and a state.\n\n Glory to Him who from the mire, 670\n In patient length of days,\n Elaborated into life\n A people to His praise!\n\nSOUL\n\n The sound is like the rushing of the wind--\n The Summer wind among the lofty pines;\n Swelling and dying, echoing round about,\n Now here, now distant, wild and beautiful;\n While, scattered from the branches it has stirred,\n Descend ecstatic odours.\n\nTHIRD CHOIR OF ANGELICALS\n\n Praise to the Holiest in the height, 680\n And in the depth be praise:\n In all His words most wonderful;\n Most sure in all His ways!\n\n The Angels, as beseemingly\n To spirit-kind was given,\n At once were tried and perfected,\n And took their seats in heaven.\n\n For them no twilight or eclipse;\n No growth and no decay:\n 'Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night, 690\n Or beatific day.\n\n But to the younger race there rose\n A hope upon its fall;\n And slowly, surely, gracefully,\n The morning dawned on all.\n\n And ages, opening out, divide\n The precious and the base,\n And from the hard and sullen mass,\n Mature the heirs of grace.\n\n O man! albeit the quickening ray, 700\n Lit from his second birth,\n Makes him at length what once he was,\n And heaven grows out of earth;\n\n Yet still between that earth and heaven--\n His journey and his goal--\n A double agony awaits\n His body and his soul.\n\n A double debt he has to pay--\n The forfeit of his sins,\n The chill of death is past, and now 710\n The penance-fire begins.\n\n Glory to Him, who evermore\n By truth and justice reigns;\n Who tears the soul from out its case,\n And burns away its stains!\n\nANGEL\n\n They sing of thy approaching agony,\n Which thou so eagerly didst question of:\n It is the face of the Incarnate God\n Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain;\n And yet the memory which it leaves will be 720\n A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound;\n And yet withal it will the wound provoke,\n And aggravate and widen it the more.\n\nSOUL\n\n Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I know\n To disengage the tangle of thy words:\n Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice,\n Than for myself be thy interpreter.\n\nANGEL\n\n When then--if such thy lot--thou seest thy Judge,\n The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart,\n All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. 730\n Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for Him,\n And feel as though thou couldst but pity Him,\n That one so sweet should e'er have placed Himself\n At disadvantage such, as to be used\n So vilely by a being so vile as thee.\n There is a pleading in His pensive eyes\n Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee.\n And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though\n Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned,\n As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire 740\n To slink away, and hide thee from His sight\n And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell\n Within the beauty of His countenance.\n And these two pains, so counter and so keen,--\n The longing for Him, when thou seest Him not;\n The shame of self at thought of seeing Him,--\n Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.\n\nSOUL\n\n My soul is in my hand: I have no fear,--\n In His dear might prepared for weal or woe.\n But hark! a grand mysterious harmony: 750\n It floods me, like the deep and solemn sound\n Of many waters.\n\nANGEL\n\n We have gained the stairs\n Which rise towards the Presence-chamber; there\n A band of mighty Angels keep the way\n On either side, and hymn the Incarnate God.\n\nANGELS OF THE SACRED STAIR\n\n Father, whose goodness none can know, but they\n Who see Thee face to face,\n By man hath come the infinite display\n Of Thy victorious grace; 760\n But fallen man--the creature of a day--\n Skills not that love to trace.\n It needs, to tell the triumph Thou hast wrought,\n An Angel's deathless fire, an Angel's reach of thought.\n\n It needs that very Angel, who with awe,\n Amid the garden shade,\n The great Creator in His sickness saw,\n Soothed by a creature's aid,\n And agonised, as victim of the Law\n Which He Himself had made; 770\n For who can praise Him in His depth and height,\n But he who saw Him reel amid that solitary fight?\n\nSOUL\n\n Hark! for the lintels of the presence-gate\n Are vibrating and echoing back the strain.\n\nFOURTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS\n\n Praise to the Holiest in the height,\n And in the depth be praise:\n In all His words most wonderful;\n Most sure in all His ways!\n\n The foe blasphemed the Holy Lord,\n As if He reckoned ill, 780\n In that He placed His puppet man\n The frontier place to fill.\n\n For even in his best estate,\n With amplest gifts endued,\n A sorry sentinel was he,\n A being of flesh and blood.\n\n As though a thing, who for his help\n Must needs possess a wife,\n Could cope with those proud rebel hosts,\n Who had angelic life. 790\n\n And when, by blandishment of Eve,\n That earth-born Adam fell,\n He shrieked in triumph, and he cried,\n \"A sorry sentinel;\n\n The Maker by His word is bound,\n Escape or cure is none;\n He must abandon to his doom,\n And slay His darling son.\"\n\nANGEL\n\n And now the threshold, as we traverse it,\n Utters aloud its glad responsive chant. 800\n\nFIFTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS\n\n Praise to the Holiest in the height,\n And in the depth be praise:\n In all His words most wonderful;\n Most sure in all His ways!\n\n O loving wisdom of our God!\n When all was sin and shame,\n A second Adam to the fight\n And to the rescue came.\n\n O wisest love! that flesh and blood\n Which did in Adam fail, 810\n Should strive afresh against the foe,\n Should strive and should prevail;\n\n And that a higher gift than grace\n Should flesh and blood refine,\n God's Presence and His very Self,\n And Essence all divine.\n\n O generous love! that He who smote\n In man for man the foe,\n The double agony in man\n For man should undergo; 820\n\n And in the garden secretly,\n And on the cross on high,\n Should teach His brethren and inspire\n To suffer and to die.\n\n\n\u00df6\n\nANGEL\n\n Thy judgment now is near, for we are come\n Into the veiled presence of our God.\n\nSOUL\n\n I hear the voices that I left on earth.\n\nANGEL\n\n It is the voice of friends around thy bed,\n Who say the \"Subvenite\" with the priest.\n Hither the echoes come; before the Throne 830\n Stands the great Angel of the Agony,\n The same who strengthened Him, what time He knelt\n Lone in the garden shade, bedewed with blood.\n That Angel best can plead with Him for all\n Tormented souls, the dying and the dead.\n\nANGEL OF THE AGONY[32]\n\n Jesu! by that shuddering dread which fell on Thee;\n Jesu! by that cold dismay which sickened Thee;\n Jesu! by that pang of heart which thrilled in Thee;\n Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled Thee;\n Jesu! by that sense of guilt which stifled Thee; 840\n Jesu! by that innocence which girdled Thee;\n Jesu! by that sanctity which reigned in Thee;\n Jesu! by that Godhead which was one with Thee;\n Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to Thee,\n Who in prison, calm and patient, wait for Thee;\n Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come to Thee,\n To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze on Thee.\n\nSOUL\n\n I go before my Judge. Ah!...\n\nANGEL\n\n ... Praise to His Name!\n The eager spirit has darted from my hold, 850\n And, with the intemperate energy of love,\n Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;\n But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity,\n Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes\n And circles round the Crucified, has seized,\n And scorched, and shrivelled it; and now it lies\n Passive and still before the awful Throne.\n O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,\n Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of God.\n\nSOUL\n\n Take me away, and in the lowest deep[33] 860\n There let me be,\n And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,\n Told out for me.\n There, motionless and happy in my pain,\n Lone, not forlorn,--\n There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,\n Until the morn.\n There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,\n Which ne'er can cease\n To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest 870\n Of its Sole Peace.\n There will I sing my absent Lord and Love:--\n Take me away,\n That sooner I may rise, and go above,\n And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.\n\n\n\u00df7\n\nANGEL\n\n Now let the golden prison ope its gates,\n Making sweet music, as each fold revolves\n Upon its ready hinge. And ye great powers,\n Angels of Purgatory, receive from me\n My charge, a precious soul, until the day, 880\n When, from all bond and forfeiture released,\n I shall reclaim it for the courts of light.\n\nSOULS IN PURGATORY[34]\n\n1. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: in every generation;\n\n2. Before the hills were born, and the world was: from age to age\nThou art God.\n\n3. Bring us not, Lord, very low: for Thou hast said, Come back again,\nye sons of Adam.\n\n4. A thousand years before Thine eyes are but as yesterday: and as a\nwatch of the night which is come and gone.\n\n5. The grass springs up in the morning: at evening-tide it shrivels\nup and dies.\n\n6. So we fail in Thine anger: and in Thy wrath we are troubled.\n\n7. Thou hast set our sins in Thy sight: and our round of days in the\nlight of Thy countenance.\n\n8. Come back, O Lord! how long: and be entreated for Thy servants.\n890\n\n9. In Thy morning we shall be filled with Thy mercy: we shall rejoice\nand be in pleasure all our days.\n\n10. We shall be glad according to the days of our humiliation: and\nthe years in which we have seen evil.\n\n11. Look, O Lord, upon Thy servants and on Thy work: and direct their\nchildren.\n\n12. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and the work\nof our hands, establish Thou it.\n\nGlory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost.\n\nAs it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without\nend. Amen.\n\nANGEL\n\n Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul,[35]\n\n In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,\n And, o'er the penal waters, as they roll,\n I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee. 900\n\n And carefully I dip thee in the lake,[36]\n And thou, without a sob or a resistance,\n Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take,\n Sinking deep, deeper into the dim distance.\n Angels, to whom the willing task is given,\n Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;\n And Masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,\n Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most Highest.\n\n Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear,\n Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow; 910\n Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,\n And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.\n\n\n[11] As suggested in the Introduction, the musical character\nof the verse of \"The Dream of Gerontius\" is brought out more and more\nby careful study of the changes of the meaning of the poem and their\nexpression. \"The Dream\" is a series of lyrics,--each lyric voicing\nits own feeling and sensitively tuned to that feeling. According to\nthe scansion most in use in English, the first supplicating lyric may\nbe classed as in pentameter iambic. Gerontius is yet in the body, and\nthe rime, used solemnly, marks a difference--which has a delicate\nsymbolism--between his utterances in the body and his utterances when\nhis soul has left the body. What we call blank verse is used by the\nSpirit--rime disappears, but the rhythm remains the same. Using\nverse-notation, we find five accented notes in each line, if we\nconsider the lines at all. There are two quarter-notes in each bar,\nwhich may be written as\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[12] (p. 25.) Gerontius dreams that he is dying. He has not strength to\npray. He hears the persons near his bed praying for him, in the\nlanguage prescribed by the Church, \"The Litany for the Dying.\" The\nthree opening invocations are in Greek, \"Kyrie Eleison\" (\"Lord, have\nmercy\"), \"Christe Eleison\" (\"Christ, have mercy\"), \"Kyrie Eleison\"\n(\"Lord, have mercy\"). The next invocation in the Litany is \"Sancta\nMaria, Ora pro eo,\" which Cardinal Newman translates into English.\nWith the exception of the first three and the last two invocations,\nthe Litany is in Latin. The Litany is too long for the purpose of the\npoem, and the author has translated into English some of the\ninvocations that would naturally strike the \"fainting soul.\" \"Be\nmerciful\" (\"Propitius esto\"), the assistants continue, still using\nparts of the Litany as versified by Cardinal Newman.\n\n[13] \"_Kyrie Ele\u00d4son_,\" etc. The poet has retained the\nsound-form used in the Prayer-books, and he shows his musical taste\nby not changing it.\n\n[14] \"_Rouse thee_,\" etc. Gerontius concentrates all his vitality. The\neffect is of nervous energy. The time is quickened and alternately\nslowed.\n\n[15] \"_Be merciful_,\" etc. The Assistants begin with the\nsolemn chant of the Church, and change to the supplication of anxious\nhuman hearts:\n\n[Illustration]\n\nor\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[16] \"_Sanctus fortis_, _Sanctus Deus_,\" etc. This is the\necstasy of faith, hope, and love. It is three Acts in one, rapidly\nand forcibly expressed. The energy and strength of self-forgetfulness\nfail when he, still in the body, sighs:\n\n \"I can no more; for now it comes again,\"--\n\n[Illustration]\n\nNote the musical effect of\n\n \"And, crueller still,\n A fierce and restless fright begins to fill\n The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,\n Some bodily form of ill.\"\n\nThe pauses after \"ill\" express horror and weakness,--\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[17] (p. 29.) Holy Strong One, Holy God,\n From the depth I pray to Thee.\n Mercy, O my Judge, for me;\n Spare me, Lord.\n\nIn the Proper for the season of Good Friday the passage which\nsuggested this reads, in Greek and Latin:\n\n 1st choir. Agios O Theos (O Holy God).\n 2d choir. Sanctus Deus (O Holy God).\n 1st choir. Agios Ischyros (O Holy Strong One).\n 2d choir. Sanctus Fortis (O Holy Strong One).\n\n[18] (p. 30.) Death dissolves me.\n\n[19] \"_Rescue him, O Lord_,\" etc. The solemn chant again. Note\nthe difference in metre between this and the \"Novissima hora est; and I\nfain would sleep. The pain has wearied me.\" Note the ardor of the\nPriest's \"Proficiscere, anima Christiana,\" etc.\n\n[20] (p. 32.) The final hour is here. \"Into Thy hands.\" The whole of\nthis prayer for the dying is: \"Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my\nspirit. O Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Holy Mary, pray for me. O\nMary, Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, do thou protect me from the\nenemy and receive me at the hour of death.\"\n\n[21] (p. 32.) \"Go forth, O Christian soul, from this world.\" These\nwords begin the prayer of the priest, recited while the soul is\ndeparting from the body. It is paraphrased in English by the\nCardinal.\n\n[22] \"_I went to sleep_,\" etc. The soul of Gerontius has left\n the body:\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[23] (p. 35.) \"Another marvel.\" According to the teaching of the\nCatholic Church, each soul is given at its birth in charge of a\nGuardian Angel. It is this angel that sings, \"My work is done.\"\n\"Alleluia\" is from two Hebrew words united by a hyphen. It means\n\"Praise the Lord.\" St. John in the Apocalypse says that he heard the\nangels singing it in heaven. It occurs in the last five Psalms and in\nTobias.\n\n[24]\n \"_My work is done_,\n My task is o'er,\"\n\nis expressed with a joyous movement,--\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n[25] Compare the thought in \"Hamlet\"--Act II, Scene II.--\"What a\npiece of work is man!\"\n\n[26] (p. 41.) When the soul has departed, the priest says the prayer\nbeginning \"Subvenite, Sancti Dei; occurrite Angeli Domini,\" etc.\n(\"Come to his assistance, ye saints of God,\" etc.).\n\n[27] \"_Low-born clods_,\" etc. The most marked change comes\nhere. The solemnity and sweetness of the soul and the angel's\nmusic--their _leit-motif_--is easily discernible. Now come\ndissonances and discords,--the rapidity of jangled cymbals struck in\nscorn. The phrase \"chucked down\" has been censured as \"inelegant.\"\nIts meaning and sound accord exactly with the spirit of the demoniac\nchorus.\n\n[28] (p. 49.) \"Extension,\" \"the position of parts outside parts.\" See\np. 366, General Metaphysics, by John Rickaby, S.J., Manuals of\nCatholic Philosophy.\n\n[29] (p. 51.) St. Francis d'Assisi. In 1224, while on Mount Alvernus,\nkeeping a fast of forty days in honor of St. Michael, a seraph\nappeared and marked the hands, feet, and right side of St. Francis\nwith the five wounds of Our Lord's Passion.\n\n[30] \"_Praise to the Holiest in the height._\" A movement\nassociated by English readers with the hymn particularly:\n\n[Illustration]\n\nor\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[31] (p. 54.) \"Dreed,\" from the old English verb \"dreogan,\" to suffer.\n\n[32] \"_Angel of the Agony._\" Note the solemn and pathetic\nrhythm effect.\n\n[33]\n \"_Take me away_, and in the lowest deep,\n There let me be,\" etc.\n\nThe catalexis--pause--is finely used here:\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[34] (p. 64.) This appeal is paraphrased by the author from the\nPsalms. The words at the end are translated from the Lesser Doxology:\n\"Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio\net nunc, et in s\u00cacula s\u00caculorum. Amen.\" The Greater Doxology begins:\n\"Gloria in excelsis Deo.\" \"Doxology\" is from two Greek words meaning\n\"praise\" and a \"discourse.\"\n\n[35]\n \"_Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul_,\n In my most loving arms I now enfold thee,\" etc.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[36] (p. 66.) In Dante's Vision of Purgatory (Canto I.) hell is spoken\nof as a \"cruel sea,\" and the water surrounding the Island of\nPurgatory as the \"better waves.\" The spirit of Gerontius is dropped\ninto these \"better waves\"--\"miglior acqua.\"\n\n \"Per correr miglior acqua alza le vele\n Omai la navicella del mio ingegno\n Che lascia dietro a se _mar si crudele_.\"\n\n \"O'er better waves to speed her rapid course,\n The light bark of my genius lifts her sail,\n Well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind.\"\n\n --_Cary's Translation._\n\n\n\n\n[A][In compliance with a suggestion received by the Editor the full\ntext of Father Faber's \"The Eternal Years,\" referred to on page 14,\nis printed on the following pages.]\n\n\nTHE ETERNAL YEARS[37]\n\nBy FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D.\n\n\n1\n\n How shalt thou bear the Cross that now\n So dread a weight appears?\n Keep quietly to God, and think\n Upon the Eternal Years.\n\n\n2\n\n Austerity is little help,\n Although it somewhat cheers;\n Thine oil of gladness is the thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n3\n\n Set hours and written rule are good,\n Long prayer can lay our fears:\n But it is better calm for thee\n To count the Eternal Years.\n\n4\n\n Rites are as balm unto the eyes,\n God's word unto the ears:\n But He will have thee rather brood\n Upon the Eternal Years.\n\n\n5\n\n Full many things are good for souls\n In proper times and spheres;\n Thy present good is in the thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n6\n\n Thy self-upbraiding is a snare,\n Though meekness it appears;\n More humbling is it far for thee\n To face the Eternal Years.\n\n\n7\n\n Brave quiet is the thing for thee,\n Chiding thy scrupulous fears;\n Learn to be real, from the thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n8\n\n Bear gently, suffer like a child,\n Nor be ashamed of tears;\n Kiss the sweet Cross, and in thy heart\n Sing of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n9\n\n Thy Cross is quite enough for thee,\n Though little it appears;\n For there is hid in it the weight\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n10\n\n And knowst thou not how bitterness\n An ailing spirit cheers?\n Thy medicine is the strengthening thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n11\n\n One Cross can sanctify a soul;\n Late saints and ancient seers\n Were what they were, because they mused\n Upon the Eternal Years.\n\n\n12\n\n Pass not from flower to pretty flower;\n Time flies, and judgment nears;\n Go! make thy honey from the thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n13\n\n Death will have rainbows round it, seen\n Through calm contrition's tears,\n If tranquil hope but trims her lamp\n At the Eternal Years.\n\n\n14\n\n Keep unconstrain'dly in this thought,\n Thy loves, hopes, smiles, and tears;\n Such prison-house thine heart will make\n Free of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n15\n\n A single practice long sustained\n A soul to God endears:\n This must be thine--to weigh the thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n16\n\n He practises all virtue well,\n Who his own Cross reveres,\n And lives in the familiar thought\n Of the Eternal Years.\n\n\n[37] \"It appears that Newman thinks so highly of that poem [\"The\nEternal Years\"] that he asked to have it sung to him during his\nrecent illness, and remarked: '\"Lead, Kindly Light\" are the words of\none seeking the truth. \"The Eternal Years\" are those of one who has\nfound it.'\"--May, 1889, Grant Duff's _Notes from a Diary_.\n\n\n * * * * *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nItalic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal\nsigns=.\n\nAll footnotes and endnotes have been reorganized into a single\nsystem of sequentially numbered footnotes.\n\nEvery effort has been made to replicate the text as faithfully as\npossible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other\ninconsistencies.\n\nObvious punctuation errors and minor printer errors repaired.\n\nBoth Eleison and Ele\u00d4son appear in text, left as originally printed.","title":"The Dream of Gerontius","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":13176}