This volume collects 177 poems by John Henry Newman. It was initially published in his lifetime, in 1868, but has been reprinted many times. The Standard Ebooks edition, which I read, says it is taken from the 1903 edition. This apparently means the Longmans reprint of its 1896 edition. Still, I’m not sure this is true since it lacks two appendices with poems in Latin (one of which with an English translation) from that edition and contains helpful endnotes by an unnamed editor that don’t seem to be in the Longmans edition.
So much for issues that would only interest librarians and book collectors. What about the poems themselves? Well, for the most part, so-so, apart from the only long poem here, “The Dream of Gerontius,” which provided the text for Elgar’s oratorio of the same name. As for the rest, some are interesting, for instance, “Epiphany Eve,” which seems to conflate the virgin Mary and Newman’s deceased sister of the same name with some references to Eve thrown in for good measure.
Also to be found here is “The Pillar and the Cloud,” better known by its first line, “Lead, kindly light,” which has been set by many composers, most notably Arthur Sullivan, and became a beloved late Victorian hymn. And scattered throughout the collection are striking images. One of them is the snapdragon, a lowly flower that roots in masonry cracks, an eloquent symbol of the cloistered life, whether that of the scholar or of the celibate priest.
Oddly, some of the best texts are Newman’s translations of hymns for the office, taken from various breviaries.
I wondered if my judgment that much of the rest here is mediocre was too harsh, so I consulted Christopher Ricks’ generous (over six hundred pages) collection of Victorian poetry. Yet he found room for only one selection from Newman, an angelic chorus excerpted from “Gerontius.”
Gerard Manley Hopkins was famously ambivalent about the craft of poetry. He doubted whether he could serve the muse and his religious vocation and burned all he had written as he approached the priesthood. Ironically, this was the same year Newman’s collection appeared (it was Newman who had received him into the church of Rome). Why couldn’t Newman serve as a role model of one who could be religious and write poetry? Or was it the quality of much contained here that made Hopkins question whether the two vocations could mix? A subject for further study. ( )

Includes the Dream of Gerontius