{
 "id": "john-henry-newman/to-f-w-n",
 "title": "To F. W. N.",
 "ordinal": "IV",
 "subtitle": "A Birthday Offering",
 "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": 4,
 "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",
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  "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": 78,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Frank, this morn has usher’d in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The manhood of thy days;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "A boy no more, thou must begin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To choose thy future ways;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For maintenance of a noble part.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And thou a voucher fair hast given,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what thou wilt achieve,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere age has dimm’d thy sun-lit heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In weary life’s chill eve;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My brother, we are link’d with chain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That time shall ne’er destroy;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Together we have been in pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Together now in joy;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For duly I to share may claim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The present brightness of thy name,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My brother, ’tis no recent tie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which binds our fates in one,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "E’en from our tender infancy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The twisted thread was spun;⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Her deed, who stored in her fond mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In her affection all had share,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All six, she loved them all;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet on her early-chosen Pair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Did her full favour fall;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And we became her dearest theme,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her waking thought, her nightly dream.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah! brother, shall we e’er forget",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her love, her care, her zeal?",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "We cannot pay the countless debt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But we must ever feel;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For through her earnestness were shed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though in the end of days she stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pain and weakness came,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Her force of thought was unsubdued,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her fire of love the same;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And e’en when memory fail’d its part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We still kept lodgment in her heart.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And when her Maker from the thrall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of flesh her spirit freed,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "No suffering companied the call,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—In mercy ’twas decreed⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "One moment here, the next she trod",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The viewless mansion of her God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now then at length she is at rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, after many a woe,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoices in that Saviour blest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who was her hope below;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Kept till the day when He shall own",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His saints before His Father’s throne.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So it is left for us to prove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her prayers were not in vain;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And that God’s grace-according love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has come as gentle rain,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, falling in the vernal hour,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Frank, we both are summon’d now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As champions of the Lord;⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Enroll’d am I, and shortly thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must buckle on thy sword;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "A high employ, nor lightly given,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To serve as messengers of heaven!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Deep in my heart that gift I hide;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I change it not away",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For patriot-warrior’s hour of pride,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or statesman’s tranquil sway;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For poet’s fire, or pleader’s skill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To pierce the soul and tame the will.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O! may we follow undismay’d",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where’er our God shall call!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And may His Spirit’s present aid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Uphold us lest we fall!",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Till in the end of days we stand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As victors in a deathless land.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}