Dr. Newman's poetry cannot be passed over without a word, though I am
ill-fitted to do it justice. _Lead, Kindly Light_ has forced its way
into every hymn-book and heart. Those who go, and those who do not go to
church, the fervent believer and the tired-out sceptic here meet on
common ground. The language of the verses in their intense sincerity
seems to reduce all human feelings, whether fed on dogmas and holy rites
or on man's own sad heart, to a common denominator.
'The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on.'
The believer can often say no more. The unbeliever will never willingly
say less.
Amongst Dr. Newman's _Verses on Various Occasions_--though in some cases
the earlier versions to be met with in the _Lyra Apostolica_ are to be
preferred to the later--poems will be found by those who seek, conveying
sure and certain evidence of the possession by the poet of the true
lyrical gift--though almost cruelly controlled by the course of the
poet's thoughts and the nature of his subjects. One is sometimes
constrained to cry, 'Oh, if he could only get out into the wild blowing
airs, how his pinions would sweep the skies!' but such thoughts are
unlicensed and unseemly. That we have two such religious poets as
Cardinal Newman and Miss Christina Rossetti is or ought to be matter for
sincere rejoicing.
II
To the inveterate truth-hunter there has been much of melancholy in the
very numerous estimates, hasty estimates no doubt, but all manifestly
sincere, which the death of Cardinal Newman has occasioned.
The nobility of the pursuit after truth wherever the pursuit may lead
has been abundantly recognised. Nobody has been base enough or cynical
enough to venture upon a sneer. It has been marvellous to notice what a
hold an unpopular thinker, dwelling very far apart from the trodden
paths of English life and thought, had obtained upon men's imaginations.
The 'man in the street' was to be heard declaring that the dead Cardinal
was a fine fellow. The newspaper-makers were astonished at the interest
displayed by their readers. How many of these honest mourners, asked the
_Globe_, have read a page of Newman's writings? It is a vain inquiry.
Newman's books have long had a large and increasing sale. They stand on
all sorts of shelves, and wherever they go a still, small voice
accompanies them. They are speaking books; an air breathes from their
pages.
'Again I saw and I confess'd
Thy speech was rare and high,
And yet it vex'd my burden'd breast,
And scared I knew not why.'
It is a strange criticism that recently declared Newman's style to lack
individuality. Oddity it lacked, and mannerisms, but not, so it seems to
me, individuality.
But this wide recognition of Newman's charm both of character and style
cannot conceal from the anxious truth-hunter that there has been an
almost equally wide recognition of the futility of Newman's method and
position.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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