 Section 1 of the Dream of Gerantius. Phase 1. Gerantius. J. Sue Maria, I am near to death, and thou art calling me, I know it now. Not by the token of this faltering breath, this chill at heart, this dampness on my brow. J. Sue, have mercy. Mary, pray for me. Tis this new feeling never felt before. Be with me, Lord, in my extremity. That I am going, that I am no more, tis this strange, innermost abandonment. Lover of souls, great God, I look to thee. This emptying out of each constituent and natural force by which I come to be. Pray for me, O my friends, a visitant is knocking his dire summons at my door. The like of whom to scare me and to daunt has never, never come to me before. Tis death, O loving friends, your prayers tis he, as though my very being had given way. As though I was no more a substance now, and could fall back on naught to be my stay. Help, loving Lord, thou my soul refuge, thou. And turn no wither, but must needs decay, and drop from out this universal frame into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss, that utter nothingness of which I came. This is it that has come to pass in me, O horror. This it is, my dearest. This, so pray for me, my friends, who have not strength to pray. Assistance. Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison. Holy Mary, pray for him. All holy angels, pray for him. Choirs of the righteous, pray for him. Holy Abraham, pray for him. Saint John Baptist, Saint Joseph, pray for him. Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Andrew, Saint John, all apostles, all evangelists, pray for him. All holy disciples of the Lord, pray for him. All holy innocents, pray for him. All holy martyrs, all holy confessors, all holy hermits, all holy virgins, all ye saints of God, pray for him. Gerontius. Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the man. And through such waning span of life and thought there still has to be trod, prepare to meet thy God. And while the storm of that bewilderment is for a season spent, and air afresh the ruin on the fall, use well the interval. Assistance. Be merciful, be gracious, spare him, Lord. Be merciful, be gracious, Lord, deliver him from the sins that are past, from thy frown and thine ire, from the perils of dying, from any complying with sin or denying his God or relying on self at the last, from the nethermost fire, from all that is evil, from power of the devil, thy servant deliver for once and for ever. 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 mountain up above, by the spirit's gracious love save him in the day of doom. Gerontius. Sanctus fortis, sanctus deus, de profundis orote, miserere jedux meus, parse mihi domini. Firmly I believe and truly God is three and God is one, and I next acknowledge duly manhood taken by the sun, and I trust in hope most fully in that manhood crucified, and each thought and deed unruly due to death as he has died. Simply to his grace and holy, light and life and strength belong, and thy love supremely, solely, him the holy, him the strong. Sanctus fortis, sanctus deus, de profundis orote, miserere jedux meus, parse mihi domini. 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 I be given with and through the angelic host to the God of Earth and Heaven, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Sanctus fortis, sanctus deus, de profundis orote, miserere jedux meus, mortis indiscrimine. I can no more, for now it comes again that sense of ruin which is worse than pain, that masterful negation and collapse of all that makes me man, as though I bent over the dizzy brink of some sheer, infinite dissent or worse, as though down, down forever I was falling through the solid framework of created things, and needs must sink and sink into the vast abyss and cruel or still, a fierce and restless fright begins to fill the mansion of my soul, and worse and worse 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. Assistance. Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour, as of old so many by thy gracious power. Amen. Enoch and Elias, from the common doom. Amen. Noe, from the waters, in a saving home. Amen. Abraham, from the abounding guilt of heathenness. Amen. Job, from his multi-form and fell distress. Amen. Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to slay. Amen. Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment day. Amen. Moses, from the land of bondage and despair. Amen. Daniel, from the hungry lions in their lair. Amen. And the children three, amid the furnace flame. Amen. Chase Susanna, from the slander and the shame. Amen. David, from Goliah, and the wrath of Saul. Amen. And the two apostles, from their prison-thrall. Amen. Thecla, from her torments. Amen. So to show thy power, rescue this thy servant in his evil hour. Gerantius. No visimo ora est. An eye-thane would sleep. The pain has wearied me. Into thy hands, O Lord, into thy hands. The Priest. Profisicere anima cristiana deho mundo. Go forth upon thy journey, Christian soul. Go from this world. Go in the name of God, the omnipotent Father who created thee. Go in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. And of the living God who bled for thee. Go in the name of the Holy Spirit, who hath been poured out on thee. Go in the name of angels and archangels. In the name of thrones and dominations. In the name of princetums and of powers. And in the name of cherubim and seraphim, go forth. Go in the name of patriarchs and prophets. And of apostles and evangelists, of martyrs and confessors. In the name of holy monks and hermits. In the name of holy virgins and all saints of God. Both men and women go on thy course. And may thy place today be found in peace. And may thy dwelling be the holy mount of Zion. The same through Christ our Lord. Phase two. Soul of Gerontius. I went to sleep and now I am refreshed. A strange refreshment for I feel in me an inexpressive lightness and a sense of freedom as I were at length myself and there had been before. How still it is. I hear no more the busy beat of time. No. Nor my fluttering breath. Nor struggling pulse. Nor does one moment differ from the next. I had a dream. Yes. Someone softly said, He's gone. And then a sigh went round the room. And then I surely heard a priestly voice cry, Subvenite! And they knelt in prayer. I seemed to hear him still. But thin and low and fainter and more faint the accents come as at an ever widening interval. Ah, whence is this? What is this severance? This silence pours a solitariness into the very essence of my soul. And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet, hath something too of sternness and of pain. For it drives back my thoughts upon their spring by a strange introversion and perforce I now begin to feed upon myself. Because I have not else to feed upon. Am I alive or dead? I am not dead. But in the body still, for I possess a sort of confidence which clings to me, that each particular organ holds its place, as here to fore combining with the rest into one symmetry that wraps me round and makes me man. And surely I could move, did I but will it, every part of me. And yet I cannot to my sense bring home, by very trial, that I have the power to strange. I cannot stir a hand or foot. I cannot make my fingers or my lips by mutual pressure witness each to each. Nor by the eyelids instantaneous stroke assure myself I have a body still. Nor do I know my very attitude, nor if I stand or lie or sit or kneel. So much I know, not knowing how I know, that the vast universe where I have dwelt is quitting me, or I am quitting it. Or I, or it, is rushing on the wings of light or lightning on an outward course. And we, in now, are million miles apart. Yet is this preemptory severance wrought out in lengthening measurements of space which grow and multiply by speed and time? Or am I traversing infinity by endless subdivision carrying back from finite towards infinitesimal, thus dying out of the expansive world? Another marvel someone has me fast within his ample palm. It is not a grasp such as they use on earth, but all around over the surface of my subtle being is though I were a sphere and capable of costing thus. A uniform and gentle pressure tells me I am not self-moving, but born forward on my way. And hark, I hear a singing, yet in sooth I cannot of that music rightly say whether I hear or touch or taste the tones. Oh, what a heart-subduing melody! My work is done, my task is o'er, and so I come taking it home, for the crown is one alleluia for evermore. My father gave in charge to me this child of earth in from its birth to serve and save alleluia and saved as he. This child of clay to me was given to veer and train by sorrow and pain in the narrow way alleluia from earth to heaven. Soul. It is a member of that family of wondrous beings who ere the worlds were made millions of ages back have stood around the throne of God. He never has known sin, but through those cycles all but infinite has had a strong and pure celestial life and bore to gaze on the unveiled face of God and drank from the eternal fount of truth and served him with a keen ecstatic love. Hark, he begins again. Angel. O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height but most in man how wonderful thou art with what a love, what soft persuasive might victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart thy tale complete of saints thou dost provide to fill the thrones which angels lost through pride. He lay a groveling babe upon the ground polluted in the blood of his first sire with his whole essence shattered and unsound and coiled around his heart a demon dire which was not of his nature but had skill to bind and form his opening mind to ill. Then was I sent from heaven to set right the balance in his soul of truth and sin and I have waged a long relentless fight resolved that death-environed spirit to win which from its fallen state when all was lost had been repurchased at so dread a cost. O, what a shifting party-colored scene of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay of recklessness and penitence has been the history of that dreary life-long fray and o'er the grace to nerve him and to lead how patient, prompt and lavish at his need. O, man, strange composite of heaven and earth majesty dwarfed to baseness fragrant flower running to poisonous seed and seeming worth cloaking corruption weakness mastering power who never art so near to crime and shame as when thou hast achieved some deed of name. How should ethereal natures comprehend a thing made up of spirit and of clay? Were we not tasked to nurse it and attend linked one to one throughout its mortal day? More than this seraph in his height of place the angel guardian knows and loves the ransom-dress. Soul Now know I surely that I am at length out of the body. Had I part with earth I never could have drunk those accents in and not have worshipped as a god the voice that was so musical. But now I am so whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed with such a full content and with a sense so apprehensive and discriminant as no temptation can intoxicate. Nor have I even terror at the thought that I am clasp by such a saintliness angel. O, praise to him at whose sublime decree the last are first, the first become the last by whom the suppliant prisoner is set free by whom proud firstborns from their thrones are cast, who raises Mary to be Queen of Heaven while Lucifer is left condemned and unforgiven. Phase 3 Soul I will address him. Mighty one, my lord, my guardian spirit, all hail angel. All hail my child, my child and brother hail what wouldest thou? Soul I would have nothing but to speak with thee for speaking's sake. I wish to hold with thee conscious communion though I feign would know a maze of things where it but meet to ask and not a curiousness angel. You cannot now cherish a wish which ought not to be wished. Soul Then I will speak. I ever have believed that on the moment when the struggling soul quitted its mortal case forthwith it fell under the awful presence of its God there to be judged and sent to its own place, what lets me now from going to my lord? Angel thou art not let but with extremist speed art hurrying to the just and holy judge for scarcely art thou disembodied yet divide a moment as men measure time into its million million millionth part yet even less than that the interval since thou disleaved the body and the priest cried subvenite and they fell to prayer. Nay scarcely yet have they begun to pray for spirits and men by different standards meet the less and greater in the flow of time. By sun and moon primeval ordinances by stars which rise and set harmoniously by the recurring seasons and the swing this way and that of the suspended rod precise and punctual men divide the hours equal continuous for their common use. Not so with us in the immaterial world but intervals in their succession are measured by the living thought alone and grow or wane with its intensity and time is not a common property but what is long is short and swift is slow and near is distant as received and grasped by this mind and by that and every one is standard of his own chronology and memory lacks its natural resting points of years and centuries and periods it is thy very energy of thought which keeps thee from thy God soul dear angel say why have I now no fear at meeting him along my earthly life the thought of death and judgment was to me most terrible I had it I before me and I saw the judge severe in in the crucifix now that the hour is come my fear is fled and at this balance of my destiny now close upon me I can forward look with a sereness joy angel it is because then thou dist fear that now thou dost not fear thou hast forstalled the agony and so for thee the bitterness of death is past also because already in thy soul the judgment is begun that day of doom one and the same for the collected world that solemn consummation for all flesh is in the case of each anticipate upon his death and as the last great day in the particular judgment is rehearsed so now too ere thou comest to the throne a presage falls upon thee as a ray straight from the judge expressive of thy lot that calm and joy uprising in thy soul is first fruit to thee the recompense and heaven begun end of section one section two of the dream of Durantius by John Henry Newman this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Russ Hobbes phase four soul but Hark upon my sins comes a fierce hubbub which would make me fear could I be frighted Angel we are now arrived close on the judgment court that sullen howl is from the demons who assemble there it is the middle region where of old Satan appeared among the sons of God to cast his jibes and scoffs at Holy Job so now his legions throng the vestibule hungry and wild to claim their property and gather souls for hell hissed to their cry soul how sour and how uncouth the dissonance demons low-born clods of brute earth they aspire to become gods by a new birth and an extra grace and a score of merits as if ought could stand in place of the high thought and the glance of fire of the great spirits the powers blessed the lords by right the primal owners of the proud dwelling and realm of light dispossessed thrust aside chucked down by the sheer might of a despot's will of a tyrant's frown who after expelling their host gave triumph at still unjust each forfeit crown to Psalm droners and canting groaners to every slave in pious cheat and crawling nave who licked the dust under his feet Angel it is the restless panting of their being like beast of prey who caged within their bars and a deep hideous purring have their life and an incessant pacing to and fro demons the mind bold and independent the purpose free so we are told must not think to have the ascendant what's a saint one whose breath doth the air taint before his death a bundle of bones which fools a door when life is o'er which rattle and stink in in the flesh we cry his pardon no flesh hathy for it hath died discusified day by day a fresh a fresh that holy clay ha ha ha this gains girdon so prieslings prayt ha ha ha before the judge and pleads and atones for spite and grudge and bigot mood and envy and hate and greed of blood soul how impotent they are and yet on earth they have repute for wonders power and skill and books describe how that the very face of the evil one if seen would have a force even to freeze the blood and choke the life of him who saw it angel in thy trial state thou hast a trader nestling close at home con natural who with the powers of hell was leaned and of thy senses kept the keys and to that deadliest foe unlock thy heart and therefore is it in respect of man those fallen ones show so majestical but when some child of grace angel or saint pure and upright in his integrity of nature meets the demons on their raid they scut away as cowards from the fight nay oft hath holy hermit in his cell not yet disburdened of mortality mocked at their threats and warlike overtures or dying when they swarmed like flies around defied them and departed to his judge demons virtue and vice a knave's pretense tis all the same ha ha dread of hellfire of the venomous flame a coward's plea give him his price saint though he be from shrewd good sense he'll slay for hire ha ha ha and does but aspire to the heaven above with sordid aim and not from love ha ha soul I see not those false spirits shall I see my dearest master when I reach his throne or hear at least his awful judgment word with personal intonation as I now hear thee not see thee angel hitherto all has been darkness since I left the earth shall I remain thus sight bereft all through my penance time if so how comes it then that I have hearing still and taste and touch yet not a glimmer of that princely sense which binds ideas in one and makes them live angel nor touch nor taste nor hearing hast thou now thou livest in a world of signs and types the presentations of most holy truths living and strong which now encompass thee a disembodied soul thou hast by right no converse with ought else beside thyself but lest so stern a solitude should load and break by being in mercy our vouchsafed some lower measures of perception which seem to thee as though through channels brought through ear or nerves or pallet which are gone and thou art wrapped and swabbed around in dreams dreams that are true yet enigmatic for the belongings of thy present state save through such symbols come not home to thee and thus thou tellest of space and time and size of fragrant solid bitter musical of fire and of refreshment after fire as let me use similitude of earth to aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask as ice which blisters may be said to burn nor hast thou now with its parts correlative long habit cosensy nor power to move thyself nor limbs to move hast thou not heard of those who after loss of hand or foot still cried that they had pains in hand or foot as though they had it still so is it now with thee who hast not lost thy hand or foot but all of which made up man so will it be until the joyous day of resurrection when thou would regain all thou hast lost new made and glorified how even now the consummated saints see God in heaven I may not exporcate meanwhile let it suffice thee to possess such means of converse as are granted thee though till that beatific vision thou art blind for in thy purgatory which comes like fire is fire without its light so his will be done I am not worthy ere to see again the face of day far less his countenance who is the very son naithless in life when I looked forward to my purgatory it ever was my solace to believe that ere I plunged amid the avenging flame I had one sight of him to strengthen me angel nor rash nor vain is that presentiment yes for one moment thou shalt see thy lord thus will it be what time thou art arraigned before the dread and thy lot is cast forever should it be to sit on his right hand among his pure elect then sight for that which to thy soul is sight as by a lightning flash will come to thee and thou shalt see amid the dark profound whom thy soul loveth and would feign approach one moment for thou knowest not my child what thou dost ask that sight of the most fair will gladden thee but it will pierce thee too soul thou speakest darkly angel and then all falls on me and a fear lest I be rash angel there was a mortal who is now above in the mid-glory he, when near to die was given communion with the crucified such that the master's very wounds were stamped upon his flesh and from the agony which thrilled through body and soul in that embrace learned that the flame of the everlasting love doth burn ere it transforms Phase 5 Hark to those sounds of tender beings angelico least and most childlike of the sons of god first choir of angelico praise to the holiest in the height and in the depths be praise in all his words most wonderful most sure in all his ways to us his elder race he gave to battle and to win without the chest tisement of pain and the veil of sin the younger son he willed to be a marvel in his birth spirit and flesh his parents were his home was heaven and earth the eternal blessed his child and armed and sent him in safar to serve as champion in the field of elemental war to be his viceroy in the world upon the frontier towards the foe a resolute defense angel we have now passed the gate and are within the house of judgment and whereas on earth temples and palaces are formed of parts costly and rare but all material so in the world of spirits not is found to mold with all and form into a whole and what is immaterial and thus the smallest portions of this edifice cornice or freeze or balustrade or stare the very pavement is made up of life of holy blessed and immortal beings who hymn their makers praise continually second choir of angelicals praise to the holiest in the height of the depth be praise in all his words most wonderful most sure in all his ways woe to the man for he was found a requriant in the fight and lost his heritage of heaven and fellowship with light above him now the angry sky around the tempest din who once had angels for his friends and a man a savage kindred they to flee that monster brood he scaled the seaside cave and cloned the giants of the wood with now a fear and now a hope with aids which chance supplied from youth to eld from sire to son he lived and toiled and died he dreed his penance age by age by step began slowly to doth his savage garb and be again a man and quickened by the almighty's breath and chastened by his rod and taught by angel visitings at length he sought his god and learned to call upon his name and in his faith create a household and a fatherland a city and a state of glory to him who from the mire in patient length of days elaborated into life a people to his praise soul the sound is like the rushing of the wind the summer wind among the lofty pines swelling and dying echoing round about now here now distant wild and beautiful while scattered from the branches it has stirred descend ecstatic odors third choir of angelicals 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 be seemingly 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 was hopeless all engulfing 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 the branches and the base and from the hardened sullen mass mature the heirs of grace oh 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 the body and his soul a double debt he has to pay the forfeit of his sins the chill of death is passed 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 angel may sing of thy approaching agony which thou so eagerly disquestion of it is the face of the incarnate god shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain and yet the memory which it leaves will be a sovereign february to heal the wound and yet with all it will the wound provoke and aggravate and widen it the more soul thou speakest mysteries still may things I know to disengage the tangle of thy words yet rather would I hear thy angel voice than for myself be thy interpreter angel when then if such thy lot thou seest thy judge the sight of him will kindle in thy heart all tender gracious reverential thoughts thou wilt be sick with love and yearn for him and feel as though thou couldst but pity him that one so sweet should ere have placed himself at disadvantage such as to be used so vilely by a being so vile as thee there's a pleading in his pensive eyes will pierce thee to the quick and trouble thee and thou wilt hate and loathe though thyself for though now sinless thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned as never thou dost feel and wilt desire to slink away and hide thee from his sight and yet wilt have a longing I to dwell within the beauty of his countenance and these two pains so counter and so keen the longing for him when thou seest him that the shame of self at thought of seeing him will be thy various sharpest purgatory soul my soul is in my hand I have no fear in his dear might prepared for wheel or roll but hark a grand mysterious harmony it floods me like the deep solemn sound of many waters angel we have gained the stairs which rise towards the presence chamber there a band of mighty angels keep the way on either side and him the incarnate god angels of the sacred stair father whose goodness none can know but they who see thee face to face have come the infinite display of thy victorious grace but fallen man the creature of a day skills not that love to trace it needs to tell the triumph thou hast wrought an angels deathless fire an angels reach of thought it needs that very angel who with all amid the garden shade the great creator his sickness saw soothed by a creature's aid and agonized as victim of the law which he himself had made for who can praise him in his depth and height but he who saw him real amid that solitary fight soul hark for the lentils of the presence gate are vibrating and equine back the strain fourth choir of angelicals praise to the holiest in the height and in the depth we praise in all his words most wonderful most sure in all his ways the full blasphemed the holy lord as if he reckoned ill in that he placed his puppet man the frontier place to fulfill for even in his best estate with ampolus gifts endued a sorry sentinel was he a bean of flesh and blood as though a thing who for his help must needs possess a wife could cope with those proud rebel hosts who had angelic life and when by blandishment of eve fowl he shrieked in triumph and he cried a sorry sentinel the maker by his word is bound escape or cure is none he must abandon to his doom and slay his darling son angel and now the threshold as we traverse it others allowed its glad responsive chant fifth choir of angelicals 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 all loving wisdom of our God when all was sin and shame a second atom to the fight and to the rescue came all wisest love that flesh and blood did in atom fail should strive afresh against the foe should strive and should prevail and that a higher gift than grace should flesh and blood refine God's presence and his very self and essence all divine oh generous love that he who smote in man for man the foe the double agony in man for man should undergo and in the garden secretly and on the cross on high should teach his brethren and inspire to suffer and to die phase six angel my judgment now is near for we are come into the veiled presence of our God soul I hear the voices that I left on earth angel it is the voice of friends around thy bed who say the subvenite with the priest hither the echoes come before the throne stands the great angel of the agony the same who strengthened him what time he note loan in the garden shade be do'd with blood that angel best complete with him for all tormented souls the dying and the dead angel of the agony jesu by that shattering dread which fell on thee jesu by that cold dismay which sicken thee jesu by that pain of heart which thrilled in thee jesu by that mount sins which crippled thee jesu by that sense of guilt which stifled thee jesu by that innocence which girdled thee jesu by that sanctity which rained in thee jesu by that godhead which was won with thee jesu spare these souls which are so dear to thee souls who in prison calm in patient wait for thee hasten lord their hour and bid them come to thee to that glorious home where they shall ever gaze on thee soul I go before my judge ah angel praise to his name the eager spirit has darted from my hold and with the intemperate energy of love flies to the dear feet of Immanuel but ere it reached them the keen sanctity which with its effluence like a glory clothes and circles round the crucified has seized and scorched and shriveled it and now it lies passive and still oh happy suffering soul for it is safe consumed yet quickened by the glance of god soul take me away and in the lowest deep there let me be and there in hope the lone night watches keep told out for me there motionless and happy in my pain lone not forlorn there will I sing my sad perpetual strain until the morn there will I sing and soothe my stricken breast which Nair can cease to throb and pine and languish to possessed of its soul peace there will I sing my absent lord in love take me away arise and go above and see him in the truth of everlasting day phase seven angel now let the golden prison open its gates making sweet music as each fold revolves upon its ready hinge and ye great powers angels of purgatory receive from me my charge a precious soul until the day when from all bound in forfeiture released I shall reclaim it for the courts of light souls in purgatory one lord thou hast been our refuge in every generation two before the hills were born and the world was from age to age thou art god three as not lord very low for thou hast said come back again ye sons of Adam four a thousand years before thine eyes are but as yesterday and as a watch of the night which is common gone five the grass brings up in the morning at evening tide it shrivels up and dies six so we fail in thine anger and in thy wrath are we troubled seven thou hast set our sins in thy sight in our round of days in the light of thy countenance eight come back oh lord how long and be entreated for thy servants nine in thy morning we shall be filled with thy mercy we shall rejoice and be in all our days ten we shall be glad according to the days of our humiliation and the years in which we have seen evil eleven look oh lord upon thy servants and on thy work and direct their children twelve and let the beauty of the lord our god be upon us and the work of our hands establish thou it glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy ghost as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen angel softly and gently dearly ransom soul in my most loving arms I now see and or the peanut water says they roll I poise thee and I lower thee and hold thee and carefully I dip thee in the lake and thou without a sob or a resistance dust through the flood thy rapid passage take sinking deep deeper into the dim distance the willing task is given shall tend and nurse and lull thee as thou liest and masses on the earth and prayers in heaven shall aid thee at the throne of the most highest farewell but not forever brother dear be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here and I will come and wake thee on the morrow the end end of section 2 end of the dream of Gerontius by John Henry Newman