The death of Gerontius was Newman's ideal Christian death, and Gerontius does not die alone; he is upborne, refreshed by the prayers of his friends. Of Newman's sacred songs, "The Pillar of the Cloud" is, as we know, put first by some critics. And yet for musical diction, for sweetness and all the beauty of artistic technique, the song of the soul in "The Dream" equals if not surpasses it.
"Take me away, and in the lowest deep,
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me."
In "Verses on Various Occasions" there is the picture of the resigned souls expecting the Blessed Vision. "Waiting for the Morning" was written at Oxford, 1835. It begins:
"They are at rest;
We may not stir the heaven of their repose
With loud-voiced grief, or passionate request,