Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!
The Angels, as beseemingly
To spirit-kind was given,
At once were tried and perfected,
And took their seats in heaven.
For them no twilight or eclipse;
No growth and no decay:
'Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night,
Or beatific day.
But to the younger race there rose
A hope upon its fall;
And slowly, surely, gracefully,
The morning dawned on all.
And ages, opening out, divide
The precious and the base,
And from the hard and sullen mass,
Mature the heirs of grace.
O man! albeit the quickening ray,
Lit from his second birth,
Makes him at length what once he was,
And heaven grows out of earth;
Yet still between that earth and heaven—
His journey and his goal—
A double agony awaits
His body and his soul.
A double debt he has to pay—
The forfeit of his sins,
The chill of death is past, and now
The penance-fire begins.
Glory to Him, who evermore
By truth and justice reigns;
Who tears the soul from out its case,
And burns away its stains!
From John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius.
