The Dream of Gerontius

Name: The Dream of Gerontius
Author: Newman, John Henry

Newman, John Henry

Christian poetry, English -- 19th century

By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross,
        Rescue him from endless loss;
        By Thy death and burial,
        Save him from a final fall;
        By Thy rising from the tomb,
          By Thy mounting up above,
          By the Spirit's gracious love,                          70
        Save him in the day of doom.

GERONTIUS

    Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,[16]
        De profundis oro te,
    Miserere, Judex meus,
        Parce mihi, Domine.[17]
    Firmly I believe and truly
        God is Three, and God is One;
    And I next acknowledge duly
        Manhood taken by the Son.
    And I trust and hope most fully                               80
        In that Manhood crucified;
    And each thought and deed unruly
        Do to death, as He has died.
    Simply to His grace and wholly
        Light and life and strength belong,
    And I love, supremely, solely,
        Him the holy, Him the strong.
    Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
        De profundis oro te,
    Miserere, Judex meus,                                         90
        Parce mihi, Domine.
    And I hold in veneration,
        For the love of Him alone,
    Holy Church, as His creation,
        And her teachings, as His own.
    And I take with joy whatever
        Now besets me, pain or fear,
    And with a strong will I sever
        All the ties which bind me here.
    Adoration aye be given                                       100
        With and through the angelic host,
    To the God of earth and heaven,
        Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
    Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus,
        De profundis oro te,
    Miserere, Judex meus,
        Mortis in discrimine.[18]

    I can no more; for now it comes again,
    That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain,
    That masterful negation and collapse                         110

    Of all that makes me man; as though I bent
    Over the dizzy brink
    Of some sheer infinite descent;
    Or worse, as though
    Down, down for ever I was falling through
    The solid framework of created things,
    And needs must sink and sink
    Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still,
    A fierce and restless fright begins to fill
    The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse,                120
    Some bodily form of ill
    Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse
    Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps
    Its hideous wings,
    And makes me wild with horror and dismay.
    O Jesu, help! pray for me, Mary, pray!
    Some angel, Jesu! such as came to Thee
    In Thine own agony....
    Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me.
        Mary, pray for me.                                       130

ASSISTANTS

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Dream of Gerontius

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