Newman Reader - Verses on Various Occasions

88. The Good Samaritan

{153}
OH that thy creed were sound! [Note]

For thou dost soothe the heart, thou Church of

Rome,

By thy unwearied watch and varied round

Of service, in thy Saviour's holy home.

I cannot walk the city's sultry streets,

But the wide porch invites to still retreats,

Where passion's thirst is calm'd, and care's un-

thankful gloom.

There, on a foreign shore,

The home-sick solitary finds a friend:

Thoughts, prison'd long for lack of speech, out-

pour

Their tears; and doubts in resignation end. {154}

I almost fainted from the long delay

That tangles me within this languid bay,

When comes a foe, my wounds with oil and

wine to tend.

Palermo.
June 13, 1833.

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Note

Of course this is the exclamation of one who,
when so writing, was not in Catholic Communion.
The same must said also of Nos. lxvi, lxxviii.
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