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On Dreaming


By John Newton


 

 

When slumber seals our weary eyes,
The busy fancy wakeful keeps;
The scenes which then before us rise,
Prove something in us never sleeps.

As in another world we seem,
A new creation of our own,
All appears real, though a dream,
And all familiar, though unknown.

Sometimes the mind beholds again
The past day's business in review,
Resumes the pleasure or the pain;
And sometimes all we meet is new.

What schemes we form, what pains we take!
We fight, we run, we fly, we fall;
But all is ended when we wake,
We scarcely then a trace recall.

But though our dreams are often wild,
Like clouds before the driving storm;
Yet some important may be styl'd,
Sent to admonish or inform.

What mighty agents have access,
What friends from heav'n, or foes from hell,
Our minds to comfort or distress,
When we are sleeping, who can tell?

One thing, at least, and 'tis enough,
We learn from this surprising fact;
Our dreams afford sufficient proof,
The soul, without the flesh, can act.

This life, which mortals so esteem,
That many choose it for their all,
They will confess, was but a dream,*
When 'waken'd by death's awful call.

*Isaiah 29:8


 

John Newton (1721-1807) was born in London, the son of the commander of a merchant sea ship which sailed the mediterranean. At the age of eleven he went to sea with his father, and made six trips with him before his dad retired. At the age of 19, Newton was forced into service on H.M.S Harwich; but finding conditions intolerable, deserted, but was soon recaptured and publically flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman. Finally he was moved to service on a slave ship, and had his first bit of luck as a seaman, when at the age of 23 he was rescued by another Captain who had known his father. He would ultimately become captain of his own ship plying the slave routes off the coast of Sierra Leone.

It was around this time that he converted to being a practicing Christian. He married in 1750, and retired from seafaring in 1755 after serious illness, and until 1760 worked as surveyor of tides in Liverpool. By this time he had become fully committed to his faith, and he became ordained as a minister; and also became friendly with William Cowper, who he would collaborate with to produce some of the most famous hymns that we now know, such as Amazing Grace. He continued to preach, and in 1780 left his Olney parish to became rector of a parish in Woolwich, London; where he would stay until his death over 25 years later.


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For more information about John Newton visit here for an extended biography. Or else here for the words, and more information about the hymn Amazing Grace.

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