{
 "id": "john-henry-newman/the-married-and-the-single",
 "title": "The Married and the Single",
 "ordinal": "CXX",
 "subtitle": "A Fragment from St. Gregory Nazianzen",
 "poet": "John Henry Newman",
 "poet_slug": "john-henry-newman",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Verses on Various Occasions",
 "book_slug": "verses-on-various-occasions",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 120,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Verses on Various Occasions (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/a600744000newmuoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/john-henry-newman_verses-on-various-occasions",
  "file": "verses-on-various-occasions.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "http://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009038168",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48927",
   "https://archive.org/details/dreamofgerontius01newmuoft"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 115,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "As, when the hand some mimic form would paint,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It marks its purpose first in shadows faint,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And next, its store of varied hues applies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till outlines fade, and the full limbs arise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So in the earlier school of sacred lore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Virgin-life no claim of honour bore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While in Religion’s youth the Law held sway,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And traced in symbols dim that better way.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, when the Christ came by a Virgin-birth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His radiant passage from high heaven to earth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, spurning father for His mortal state,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did Eve and all her daughters consecrate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Solved fleshly laws, and in the letter’s place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gave us the Spirit and the Word of Grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then shone the glorious Celibate at length,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Robed in the dazzling lightnings of its strength,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Surpassing spells of earth and marriage vow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As soul the body, heaven this world below,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eternal peace of saints life’s troubled span,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the high throne of God, the haunts of man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So now there circles round the King of Light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heaven on earth, a blameless court and bright,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aiming as emblems of their God to shine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Christ in their heart, and on their brow His Sign⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Soft funeral lights in the world’s twilight dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loving their God, and ever loved by Him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ye countless multitudes, content to bow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the soft thraldom of the marriage vow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mark your haughty step, your froward gaze,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gems deck your hair, and silk your limbs arrays;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come, tell the gain which wedlock has conferr’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On man; and then the single shall be heard.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The married many thus might plead, I ween;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Right glib their tongue, full confident their mien:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Hear all who live! to whom the nuptial rite",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has brought the privilege of life and light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We, who are wedded, but the law obey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stamp’d at creation on our blood and clay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What time the Demiurge our line began,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oped Adam’s side, and out of man drew man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thenceforth let children of a mortal sod",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Honour the law of earth, the primal law of God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“List, you shall hear the gifts of price that lie",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Gathered and bound within the marriage-tie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What taught the arts of life, the truths which sleep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In earth, or highest heaven, or vasty deep?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What fill’d the mart, and urged the vessel brave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To link in one fair countries o’er the wave?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What raised the town? what gave the type and germ",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of social union, and of sceptre firm?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What the first husbandman, the glebe to plough,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And rear the garden, but the marriage vow?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Nay, list again! Who seek its kindly chain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A second self, a double presence gain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hands, eyes, and ears, to act or suffer here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till e’en the weak inspire both love and fear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A comrade’s sigh, to soothe when cares annoy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A comrade’s smile, to elevate his joy.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Nor say it weds us to a carnal life,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When want is urgent, fears and vows are rife.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Light heart is his, who has no yoke at home,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scant prayer for blessings, as the seasons come;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But wife, and offspring, goods which go or stay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Teach us our need, and make us trust and pray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take love away, and life would be defaced,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A ghastly vision on a howling waste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stern, heartless, reft of the sweet spells which swage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The throes of passion, and which gladden age.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No child’s sweet pranks, once more to make us young;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No ties of place about our heart-strings flung;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No public haunts to cheer; no festive tide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When harmless mirth and smiling wit preside;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A life which scorns the gifts by heaven assign’d,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor knows the sympathy of human kind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Prophets and teachers, priests and victor kings,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Deck’d with each grace which heaven-taught nature brings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These were no giant offspring of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But to the marriage-promise owed their birth:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moses and Samuel, David, David’s Son,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blessed Tishbite, the more blessed John,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sacred Twelve in apostolic choir,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strong-hearted Paul, instinct with seraph fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And others, now or erst, who to high heaven aspire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bethink ye; should the single state be best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet who the single, but my offspring blest?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My sons, be still, nor with your parents strive:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They coupled in their day, and so ye live.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thus marriage pleads. Now let her rival speak⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dim is her downcast eye, and pale her cheek;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Untrimm’d her gear; no sandals on her feet;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sparest form for austere tenant meet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She drops her veil her modest face around,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her lips open, but we hear no sound.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will address her:⁠—“Hail, O child of Heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glorious within! to whom a post is given",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard by the Throne where angels bow and fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "E’en while thou hast a name and mission here,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O deign thy voice, unveil thy brow and see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy ready guard and minister in me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft hast thou come heaven-wafted to my breast,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright Spirit! so come again, and give me rest.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "… “Ah, who has hither drawn my backward feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Changing for worldly strife my lone retreat?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, in the silent chant of holy deeds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I praise my God, and tend the sick soul’s needs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By toils of day, and vigils of the night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By gushing tears, and blessed lustral rite.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have no sway amid the crowd, no art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In speech, no place in council or in mart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor human law, nor judges throned on high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smile on my face, and to my words reply.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let others seek earth’s honours; be it mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One law to cherish, and to track one line,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight on towards heaven to press with single bent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To know and love my God, and then to die content.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}