Newman Reader - Verses on Various Occasions - Verse 4

4. To F. W. N.
A Birthday Offering

{12}
DEAR Frank, this morn has usher'd in

The manhood of thy days;

A boy no more, thou must begin

To choose thy future ways;

To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,

For maintenance of a noble part.

And thou a voucher fair hast given,

Of what thou wilt achieve,

Ere age has dimm'd thy sun-lit heaven,

In weary life's chill eve;

Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace

Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.

My brother, we are link'd with chain

That time shall ne'er destroy;

Together we have been in pain,

Together now in joy; {13}

For duly I to share may claim

The present brightness of thy name.

My brother, 'tis no recent tie

Which binds our fates in one,

E'en from our tender infancy

The twisted thread was spun;—

Her deed, who stored in her fond mind

Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.

In her affection all had share,

All six, she loved them all;

Yet on her early-chosen Pair

Did her full favour fall; [Note ]

And we became her dearest theme,

Her waking thought, her nightly dream.

Ah! brother, shall we e'er forget

Her love, her care, her zeal?

We cannot pay the countless debt,

But we must ever feel;

For through her earnestness were shed

Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.

{14}
Though in the end of days she stood,

And pain and weakness came,

Her force of thought was unsubdued,

Her fire of love the same;

And e'en when memory fail'd its part,

We still kept lodgment in her heart.

And when her Maker from the thrall

Of flesh her spirit freed,

No suffering companied the call,

—In mercy 'twas decreed,—

One moment here, the next she trod

The viewless mansion of her God.

Now then at length she is at rest,

And, after many a woe,

Rejoices in that Saviour blest

Who was her hope below;

Kept till the day when He shall own

His saints before His Father's throne.

So it is left for us to prove

Her prayers were not in vain;

And that God's grace-according love

Has come as gentle rain, {15}

Which, falling in the vernal hour,

Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.

Dear Frank, we both are summon'd now

As champions of the Lord;—

Enroll'd am I, and shortly thou

Must buckle on thy sword;

A high employ, nor lightly given,

To serve as messengers of heaven!

Deep in my heart that gift I hide;

I change it not away

For patriot-warrior's hour of pride,

Or statesman's tranquil sway;

For poet's fire, or pleader's skill

To pierce the soul and tame the will.

O! may we follow undismay'd

Where'er our God shall call!

And may His Spirit's present aid

Uphold us lest we fall!

Till in the end of days we stand,

As victors in a deathless land.

Chiswick.
June 27, 1826.

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Note

Of course the allusion is not to the author's
mother; a mother has no favourites.
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Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman
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