A Spirit Passed Before Me [From Job]
A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled--
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine--
And there it stood,--all formless--but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:
'Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay--vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!'
Related quotes
A spirit pass'd before me
A spirit pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveil'd.
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine.
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine;
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And, as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake.
"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"
poem by Byron (1815)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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My worst nightmare
My worst nightmare I dread and fear
To be buried beneath a street far from my dears
I will be long dead and my heart full of dust
The place, the dwell of my wherever lost lust
The wheels and hooves of machines and beasts rolling over my head
My bones will be shaken with pain and dread
This is how it will be
If no one is going to take a heed of me
If into a shallow grave my tattered skeleton is thrust
Imagine only inches beneath a heavy traffic street bust
The gallop of horses and the trot of goats and cows
Will keep their relentless beat with a chorus of crows
Beat into my scalp and my brain
Like never an end to the stream of rushing ants under rain
Heedless of poor me carrying, traveling, hurrying, leaving
In my life I shun away from front busy street living
When the wretched age catch up with my bones
Not a bell will be rang, not a pray or eulogy will be read
It is that which makes us noble in the world of the dead
Just like this lowering me down to my eternal tomb bed?
Ah, my spirit where does it wander where does it pass
My soul where does it dwell in heaven or in hell
In the face of immortality and ancient laws unveil
Deep sleep, eternal doom comes to every sinew and lust
No more pleasant summer night dreams, no more morning first shine
But this eternal entity; all formless kingdom divine
Along my bones the creeping tattered flesh will quake
And my all damped besmeared hair stiffened with dust and thus it spake
Do you find God there in this colossus universe of ultimate justice pure
Or you be-left to deem and contemplate in land of spiritual desolation insecure
Among creatures of grave clay; the vain dwellers of tomb dust
A moth out survive you; a mold digs and borrows under your gravel rust
Things of normal routine day you never see nor attend the dusk of night
Heedless, stale and blind to wisdom and light
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Gettysburg
Today at Gettysburg the woods are calm, nodding to and through
With shimmering forms that flash before an observer view
And then melt in green, variety of hues as the dawn stars melt in blue
The smiling leaves wave whitening against one's cheek in peaceful caress
As the hands of shadow widows against the wide meadow still express
Even now, their mighty subtle tenderness over this past battle field duress
Embracing boughs at the wood depth into a little wind whisper start
That noise like the echo of wounded fire heart
The agony of despaired screams coming from lips smoking wide apart
It is all quiet now, the trees dream in balm undisturbed by past wrong
The scenery is innocent in beauty, multiplying and strong
The scent of flowers scan through the valley of breath calm and long
Yet reminiscence does breed the stress and the urgent of war
The haunted ecstasy of humans and beast cries tore
The smoke, the fire, and bullets rushing into blood gore
The wounded, the battled deformed dragged behind steeds neighing roar
This morning the dew plashed road is clear and dry
Rich wreathes grape the spacious foreheads of sturdy pines
And from heights breathe ambrosial passion from their vines
And like a timid child they hide from human eye
As I stroll in past paths, I pray with mosses and flowers shy
And as they lift adoring perfumes to the July sky
I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass
Over corn fields and matted miracles of grass
My route leads me into veined complex of space
Where the vast sky with elongated leafage interlace
So close, so calm the heaven of sapphire is seen
As if in woven with heaven of infinitude pastoral green
One may feel the urge to summon the prophet Ezekiel
Who as that past miracle bones revival, will conjure you from hell
Back to here where I pause, my forward faring eyes
Take these magnificent harvests, where the stately vigorous corn-ranks rise.
Oh spirits passing before me as I behold
Your faces in the kingdom of mortality are unfold
Deep eternal sleep comes to every watching eye
Yet yours came so swiftly unjustly under dire battle sigh
Along your bones the creeping flesh did quiver and quake
As your damp hair stiffened with agony and fear it hardly spake
Is man more just in morals than God? , is man more pure
Than he who deems all of us in basic sinful and insecure?
I do mourn you creatures of clay, vainly fell to dwell in the dust
The fields around beauty and calm survive defiantly of your unjust
Things of the day happen and go about their cause before the night
You are the victims of heedlessness and blindness to wisdom wasted light
For politicians like poets should build up their hardihood
From human humility and universal moral food
Drawn in proportions unselfish un individual fair
From honest mould and vagabond ancient wisdom air
Shall man be eventually wise to learn from antique ashes departed flame
Which can bestow on him finer life and longer fame
From past battle wounds and historical balms
From tempest storm and following peace and calms
From archeological potsherds and dry bones
And ruins of past emperors and lying unturned broken stones
Across Gettysburg the woods are holy and calm
Under summer night they absorb the gorgeous moon charm
The colors of splendid night, as the veils of dusk turn deep
Mother earth takes back her sons' sorrow as it turns to sleep
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In Memory of a Happy Day in February
Blessed be Thou for all the joy
My soul has felt today!
O let its memory stay with me
And never pass away!
I was alone, for those I loved
Were far away from me,
The sun shone on the withered grass,
The wind blew fresh and free.
Was it the smile of early spring
That made my bosom glow?
'Twas sweet, but neither sun nor wind
Could raise my spirit so.
Was it some feeling of delight,
All vague and undefined?
No, 'twas a rapture deep and strong,
Expanding in the mind!
Was it a sanguine view of life
And all its transient bliss
A hope of bright prosperity?
O no, it was not this!
It was a glimpse of truth divine
Unto my spirit given
Illumined by a ray of light
That shone direct from heaven!
I felt there was a God on high
By whom all things were made.
I saw His wisdom and his power
In all his works displayed.
But most throughout the moral world
I saw his glory shine;
I saw His wisdom infinite,
His mercy all divine.
Deep secrets of his providence
In darkness long concealed
Were brought to my delighted eyes
And graciously revealed.
But while I wondered and adored
His wisdom so divine,
I did not tremble at his power,
I felt that God was mine.
I knew that my Redeemer lived,
I did not fear to die;
Full sure that I should rise again
To immortality.
I longed to view that bliss divine
Which eye hath never seen,
To see the glories of his face
Without the veil between.
poem by Anne Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hymn 82
God far above creatures.
Job 4:17-21.
Shall the vile race of flesh and blood
Contend with their Creator God?
Shall mortal worms presume to be
More holy, wise, or just than he?
Behold, he puts his trust in none
Of all the spirits round his throne:
Their natures, when compared with his,
Are neither holy, just, nor wise.
But how much meaner things are they
Who spring from dust, and dwell in clay!
Touched by the finger of thy wrath,
We faint and vanish like the moth.
From night to day, from day to night,
We die by thousands in thy sight;
Buried in dust whole nations lie
Like a forgotten vanity.
Almighty Power, to thee we bow;
How frail are we, how glorious thou!
No more the sons of earth shall dare
With an eternal God compare.
poem by Isaac Watts
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If Brain controls Body, Think, who created Brain And Controls it!
Gaining control over flesh and nerves,
the spirit that raised us from dust,
Is it not true that the spirit that dance,
this clay toy is moved by the light within!
Closing eyes see with divine eye,
The one who created light, shine,
running through nerves Her will,
motion controlled by currents!
your talent is its talent,
your dance is its dance,
if brain controls flesh,
think, who created and controls brain!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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From The Cantata For N. F. S. Grundtvig
His day was the greatest the Northland has seen,
It one was with the midnight-sun's wonders serene:
The light wherein he sat was the light of God's true peace,
And that has never morning, nor night when it must cease.
In light of God's peace shone the
history
he gave,
The spirit's course on earth that shall conquer the grave.
Might of God's pure peace thus our
fathers'
mighty way
Before us for example and warning open lay.
In light of God's peace he beheld with watchful eye
The people at their work and the spirit's strivings high.
In light of God's pure peace he would have all learning glow,
And where his word is honored the 'Folk-High-Schools' must grow.
In light of God's peace stood 'mid sorrow and care
For Denmark's folk his comfort, a castle strong and fair;
In light of God's pure peace there shall once again be won
And thousand-fold increased, what seems lost now and undone.
In light of God's peace stands his patriarch-worth,
The sum and the amen of a manful life on earth.
In light of God's pure peace how his face shone, lifted up,
When white-haired at the altar he held th' atoning cup.
In light of God's peace came his word o'er the wave,
In light of God's pure peace sound the sweet psalms he gave.
In light of God's pure peace, as its sunbeam curtains fall
To hide him from us, stands now his memory for all.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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Music: An Ode
WAS it light that spake from the darkness,
or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound
of the sun or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage
of seasons that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh,
and blinded with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake,
and the spirit of life was heard.
Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man,
and the thrall was free.
Slave of nature and serf of time,
the bondman of life and death,
Dumb with passionless patience that breathed
but forlorn and reluctant breath,
Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer,
and communed aloud with the sea.
Morning spake, and he heard:
and the passionate silent noon
Kept for him not silence:
and soft from the mounting moon
Fell the sound of her splendour,
heard as dawn's in the breathless night,
Not of men but of birds whose note
bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:
And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness
of earth were as chords in tune.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Bible Stories: Job (Chapter IV)
Spoke Eliphaz, the Termanite:
Will you mind, if we speak to you?
Can anyone not talk to you?
You had advised many people;
You had strengthened their feeble hands;
Your words had helped those who falter.
When in problems, you’re impatient;
When troubles seek you, you’re annoyed;
Is not your piety, your faith?
Is not your steadfastness, your hope?
Do innocents truly perish?
Are upright, really destroyed?
The trouble-sower reaps the same;
The breath of God makes them perish;
The wrath of God consumes them all!
Although the mighty lion roars,
Teeth of young lions get broken!
For want of prey, old lions die;
The cubs get scattered from mother.
I heard a word whispered in ear:
I saw visions while men had slept;
Fear engulfed me, deep in my bones;
A spirit passed as hairs stood up.
Before my eyes, a figure asked,
“Can man be more righteous than God? ”
“Can mortals be like God, blameless? ”
When God can’t trust his own servants,
And can find fault with angels too,
How easily can He, with men
Of clay, living in clay-houses,
Which get crushed worse than any moth!
Morning or evening, men perish;
Pegs of their tents are plucked with ease;
They die without gaining wisdom!
Man is a naught versus God great!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 4-27-2007
poem by John Celes
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Hymn 22 part 2
Flesh and spirit.
Rom. 8:1
What vain desires and passions vain
Attend this mortal clay!
Oft have they pierced my soul with pain,
And drawn my heart astray.
How have I wandered from my God!
And, following sin and shame,
In this vile world of flesh and blood
Defiled my nobler frame!
For ever blessed be thy grace
That formed my soul anew,
And made it of a heav'n-born race,
Thy glory to pursue.
My spirit holds perpetual war,
And wrestles and complains;
But views the happy moment near
That shall dissolve its chains.
Cheerful in death I close my eyes
To part with every lust;
And charge my flesh, whene'er it rise,
To leave them in the dust.
My purer spirit shall not fear
To put this body on;
Its tempting powers no more are there,
Its lusts and passions gone!
poem by Isaac Watts
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Wallflower
6x6 - from wall to wall
Shutters on the windows, no light at all
Damp on the floor you got damp on the bed
Theyre trying to get you crazy - get you out of your head
They feed you scraps and they feed you lies
To lower your defences, no compromise
Nothing you can do, they day can be long
You mind is working overtime, you bodys not too strong
Hold on, hold on
They put you in a box so you cant get heard
Let your spirit stay unbroken, may you not be deterred
Hold on, you have gambled with your own life
And you face the night alone
While the builders of the cages
They sleep with bullets, bars and stone
They do not see your road to freedom
That you build with flesh and bone
They take you out - the light burns your eyes
To the talking room - its not surprise
Loaded questions from clean white coats
Their eyes are all as hidden as their hipppcratic oath
They tell you - how to behave, hehave as their guest
You want to resist them, you do your best
They take you to your limits, they take you beyond
For all that they are doing theres no way to respond
Hold on, hold on
They put you in a box so you cant get heard
Let your spirit stay unbroken, may you not be deterred
Hold on, you have gambled with your own life
And you face the night alone
While the builders of the cages
They sleep with bullets, bars and stone
They do not see your road to freedom
That you build with flesh and bone
Though you may disappear, youre not forgotten here
And I will say to you, I will do what I can do
You may disappear, youre not forgotten here
And I will say you you, I will do what I can do
And I will do what I can do
And I will do what I can do
song performed by by Peter Gabriel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dies Irae
On that great, that awful day,
This vain world shall pass away.
Thus the sibyl sang of old,
Thus hath holy David told.
There shall be a deadly fear
When the Avenger shall appear,
And unveiled before his eye
All the works of man shall lie.
Hark! to the great trumpet's tones
Pealing o'er the place of bones:
Hark! it waketh from their bed
All the nations of the dead,--
In a countless throng to meet,
At the eternal judgment seat.
Nature sickens with dismay,
Death may not retain its prey;
And before the Maker stand
All the creatures of his hand.
The great book shall be unfurled,
Whereby God shall judge the world;
What was distant shall be near,
What was hidden shall be clear.
To what shelter shall I fly?
To what guardian shall I cry?
Oh, in that destroying hour,
Source of goodness, Source of power,
Show thou, of thine own free grace,
Help unto a helpless race.
Though I plead not at thy throne
Aught that I for thee have done,
Do not thou unmindful be,
Of what thou hast borne for me:
Of the wandering, of the scorn,
Of the scourge, and of the thorn.
Jesus, hast thou borne the pain,
And hath all been borne in vain?
Shall thy vengeance smite the head
For whose ransom thou hast bled?
Thou, whose dying blessing gave
Glory to a guilty slave:
Thou, who from the crew unclean
Didst release the Magdalene:
Shall not mercy vast and free,
Evermore be found in thee?
Father, turn on me thine eyes,
See my blushes, hear my cries;
Faint though be the cries I make,
Save me for thy mercy's sake,
From the worm, and from the fire,
From the torments of thine ire.
Fold me with the sheep that stand
Pure and safe at thy right hand.
Hear thy guilty child implore thee,
Rolling in the dust before thee.
Oh the horrors of that day!
When this frame of sinful clay,
Starting from its burial place,
Must behold thee face to face.
Hear and pity, hear and aid,
Spare the creatures thou hast made.
Mercy, mercy, save, forgive,
Oh, who shall look on thee and live?
poem by Thomas Babbington Macaulay
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Let The Night Sleep
Let the night sleep
Sleep for ever deep
With the night I sleep
Beyond the world to peep
Universe will sleep
Plants and trees
Birds and bees
Stars and moon
To sleep very soon!
Fruits and flowers
Joy with showers
Will sleep with me and the night
Not to keep the life very tight!
No dawn of the day
Right upto the dooms day!
Sleep permanent
In the world impermanent
I'll sleep without light
My agonies will sleep
My worries will sleep
My pains will sleep
My sins will sleep!
While in sleep
I am pure
I am peace
I am noble!
While my body is asleep
Awake my soul I keep
Sleep akin to death
Death akin to sleep in mirth?
Let the night sleep
Sleep for ever deep
With night I sleep
Sleep to eternity
Soul to merge in Divinity!
poem by Subbaraman N V
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Dark Creatures
I'm calling to you
The creatures of the deep.
The creatures of the dark.
A creation of an ark.
Riding out the storm.
With only you as company.
The powerless feeling.
Watching all my friends and family drown.
Am I'm not able to save them.
One by one they disappear into the expansive blue ocean.
The doctor tells me it was only a dream.
But I know a nightmare when I have one.
Screaming out in the middle of the night.
Where is the shining light.
The heavenly delight.
Isn't that the way I'm suppose to feel?
I'm calling to you
The creatures of the deep.
The creatures of the dark.
A creation of an ark.
Riding out the storm.
With only you as company.
I give you my hand only to slip away.
Continuously falling.
The bottomless pit.
I was dragged in it.
All these corpses souls are looking at me.
Whispering of my guilt.
Screaming out in the middle of the night.
Where is the shining light.
The heavenly delight.
Isn't that the way I'm suppose to feel?
I'm calling to you
The creatures of the deep.
The creatures of the dark.
A creation of an ark.
Riding out the storm.
With only you as company.
Blood starts dripping out of my nose.
And I don't know how it it happen.
For I just woke from this horrible dream.
A splash of cold water to wipe my face clean.
But I still don't feel as if I'm really here.
An outer body experience.
An astral projection of my reflection.
Looking at the second one of you.
Is that really me?
Screaming out in the middle of the night.
Where is the shining light.
The heavenly delight.
Isn't that the way I'm suppose to feel?
I'm calling to you
The creatures of the deep.
The creatures of the dark.
A creation of an ark.
Riding out the storm.
With only you as company.
Screaming out in the middle of the night.
Where is the shining light.
The heavenly delight.
Isn't that the way I'm suppose to feel?
I'm calling to you
The creatures of the deep.
The creatures of the dark.
A creation of an ark.
Riding out the storm.
With only you as company.
With only you as company.
Only you as company.
My dark little creatures.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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The Library
'Let there be light!' God spake of old,
And over chaos dark and cold,
And through the dead and formless frame
Of nature, life and order came.
Faint was the light at first that shone
On giant fern and mastodon,
On half-formed plant and beast of prey,
And man as rude and wild as they.
Age after age, like waves, o'erran
The earth, uplifting brute and man;
And mind, at length, in symbols dark
Its meanings traced on stone and bark.
On leaf of palm, on sedge-wrought roll,
On plastic clay and leathern scroll,
Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed,
And to! the Press was found at last!
Then dead souls woke; the thoughts of men
Whose bones were dust revived again;
The cloister's silence found a tongue,
Old prophets spake, old poets sung.
And here, to-day, the dead look down,
The kings of mind again we crown;
We hear the voices lost so long,
The sage's word, the sibyl's song.
Here Greek and Roman find themselves
Alive along these crowded shelves;
And Shakespeare treads again his stage,
And Chaucer paints anew his age.
As if some Pantheon's marbles broke
Their stony trance, and lived and spoke,
Life thrills along the alcoved hall,
The lords of thought await our call!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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No Small Miracle
No small miracle
By kenny chesney
In a little town down south
Theres little plowboard house
With a wolf outside the door
And in the bedroom theres a light
Its been staying on all night
For at least a month or more
The heartaches and the bills keep coming due
And with all theyre going through
Chorus
Its no small miracle that love hangs on
Hearts get weary when hope is gone
In a world where roses wither and die
Its no small miracle when love survives
Its been uphill for a while
But he still makes her smile
Every now and then
Lately they been finding out
Its the little things that count
And they do what they can
He tells her he loves her everyday
She says things will be ok
Chorus
In a world where roses wither and die
Its no small miracle when love survives
song performed by by Kenny Chesney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Lonely God!
a lonely God...
from dust made flesh,
and filled it with
the haunting spirit of wind.
eyes that open
both in and out,
a fire kindled of bones!
who are we
to run blindly
into the sun?
to hide from the rain
that weeps for us?
idols made of fear,
the soul chokes the spirit.
we stand on the porch,
afraid to open the door!
dust and flesh,
wind and fire...
bones that cry out,
tears lost in the rain.
a lonely God...
walks away!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Rocked In The Cradle Of The Deep
Rocked in the cradle of the deep
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord! hast power to save.
I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow's fall;
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
When in the dead of night I lie
And gaze upon the trackless sky,
The star-bespangled heavenly scroll,
The boundless waters as they roll, -
I feel Thy wondrous power to save
From perils of the stormy wave:
Rocked in the cradle of the deep,
I calmly rest and soundly sleep.
And such the trust that still were mine,
Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine,
Or though the tempest's fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean cave, still safe with Thee
The germ of immortality!
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
poem by Emma Hart Willard
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Invocation
Through Thy clear spaces, Lord, of old,
Formless and void the dead earth rolled;
Deaf to Thy heaven's sweet music, blind
To the great lights which o'er it shined;
No sound, no ray, no warmth, no breath,--
A dumb despair, a wandering death.
To that dark, weltering horror came
Thy spirit, like a subtle flame,--
A breath of life electrical,
Awakening and transforming all,
Till beat and thrilled in every part
The pulses of a living heart.
Then knew their bounds the land and sea;
Then smiled the bloom of mead and tree;
From flower to moth, from beast to man,
The quick creative impulse ran;
And earth, with life from thee renewed,
Was in thy holy eyesight good.
As lost and void, as dark and cold
And formless as that earth of old;
A wandering waste of storm and night,
Midst spheres of song and realms of light;
A blot upon thy holy sky,
Untouched, unwarned of thee, am I.
O Thou who movest on the deep
Of spirits, wake my own from sleep
Its darkness melt, its coldness warm,
The lost restore, the ill transform,
That flower and fruit henceforth may be
Its grateful offering, worthy Thee.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Expectation
I fear that I have lost you
not from things you say,
just from the things you leave unsaid
on too many a day.
But should I not have known, my love
that things would end like this?
For too many years have passed us by
since that long ago cherished kiss.
The constant living that was separate from me
is the magnet I can't fight.
I can understand that attraction
like the moth that's drawn to the light.
I cannot dowse the light I fear
nor capture the moth I see.
And so the loss is my heartache
that came expectedly.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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