BORN, FEBRUARY 21, 1801. DIED AUGUST 11, 1890.
"Lead, kindly Light!" From lips serene as strong,
Chaste as melodious, on world-weary ears
Fall, 'midst earth's chaos wild of hopes and fears,
The accents calm of spiritual song,
Striking across the tumult of the throng
Like the still line of lustre, soft, severe,
From the high-riding, ocean-swaying sphere,
Athwart the wandering wilderness of waves.
Is there not human soul-light which so laves
Earth's lesser spirits with its chastening beam,
That passion's bale-fire and the lurid gleam
Of sordid selfishness know strange eclipse?
Such purging lustre his, whose eloquent lips
Lie silent now. Great soul, great Englishman!
Whom narrowing bounds of creed, or caste, or clan,
Exclude not from world-praise and all men's love.
Fine spirit, which the strain of ardent strife
Warped not from its firm poise, or made to move
From the pure pathways of the Saintly Life!
NEWMAN, farewell! Myriads whose spirits spurn
The limitations thou didst love so well,
Who never knew the shades of Oriel,
Or felt their quickened spirits pulse and burn
Beneath that eye's regard, that voice's spell,—
Myriads, world-scattered and creed-sundered, turn
In thought to that hushed chamber's chastened gloom.
In all great hearts there is abundant room
For memories of greatness, and high pride
In what sects cannot kill nor seas divide.
The Light hath led thee, on through honoured days
And lengthened, through wild gusts of blame and praise,
Through doubt, and severing change, and poignant pain,
Warfare that strains the breast and racks the brain,
At last to haven! Now no English heart
Will willingly forego unfeigned part
In honouring thee, true master of our tongue,
On whose word, writ or spoken, ever hung
All English ears which knew that tongue's best charm.
Not as great Cardinal such hearts most warm
To one above all office and all state,
Serenely wise, magnanimously great;
Not as the pride of Oriel, or the star
Of this host or of that in creed's hot war,
But as the noble spirit, stately, sweet,
Ardent for good without fanatic heat,
Gentle of soul, though greatly militant,
Saintly, yet with no touch of cloistral cant;
Him England honours, and so bends to-day
In reverent grief o'er NEWMAN's glorious clay.