Incense
Think not that incense-smoke has had its day.
My friends, the incense-time has but begun.
Creed upon creed, cult upon cult shall bloom,
Shrine after shrine grow gray beneath the sun.
And mountain-boulders in our aged West
Shall guard the graves of hermits truth-endowed:
And there the scholar from the Chinese hills
Shall do deep honor, with his wise head bowed.
And on our old, old plains some muddy stream,
Dark as the Ganges, shall, like that strange tide —
(Whispering mystery to half the earth) —
Gather the praying millions to its side,
And flow past halls with statues in white stone
To saints unborn to-day, whose lives of grace
Shall make one shining, universal church
Where all Faiths kneel, as brothers, in one place.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
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Related quotes
The Unseen Shrines
The shrine where only one person can reign,
That is formless, figure less, unseen but felt and ours,
It is simply elusive, safe, treasured, but monopolized,
it is formless, figure less, unseen but felt and ours.
The shrine where only one person can reign,
Light this shrine with the wick of kindness,
The kindness, the size of life long,
Oil of understanding to fuel it regularly,
As Tolerance suffocates the person in it,
Let us understand and love each other,
The shrine where only one person can reign,
Never lighten this shrine with spirited lamps,
Smoke it with Incense of weeds and drugs,
The shrine that is figure less,
The shrine that is formless,
The shrine that is unseen,
The shrine that can be felt,
The shrine that can be enjoyed,
The shrine that can be worshiped,
It is nowhere else, it is in our heart,
That is built for the person whom we love.
poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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The Kali Jali And The Panji Story
Near the “Kali Jali”
The brown water flow
In the Rainy day
Where laid the “getek” were made from bamboo tree
brought the people went from side to another side the river
Bring bycycle, handbag, went to the town
Or the Chinese shop
While I like play on its side the river
Brought by my sister
Who lives in my grandma and grandpa
My big family from father line
Where our ancient family in the backyard
With same place with districthead called Sawunggalig
I like to play there,
When I went home from my holiday
My father were angry because my foot injury
Couldn’t care myself
When I were became of adult people
I know, so many government official
went to that place brought the incense and fire its
and the smoke around up to sky spread promise and hope
still strong and have accessed in their power
To day I don’t know where they run away
or stay behind the incense smoke
in the wall of company and bigest shop
in my town
build the traditional relgious school
hide in the bankriverside,
and the incense smoke,
flow around,
and flow the capital from another country
to every company, shop and charity,
to the mosque, with coruption money.
While I could think only
In the bankriverside, The Lord of Sunan, and ask why Kali Jali
Flow the brown water and not transparent anymore
poem by Prasetya Utama
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I'm A Cult Hero
I'm a cult hero
A dream come true
You want to touch me
But you can't get through
I walk on water and i don't get wet
I've got something you won't forget
I'm a cult hero -- payed my dues
I'm a cult hero -- got nothing to lose
I'm a cult hero
I'm a cult hero
I'm ahead of my time
You'll never rule me
'coz i'm all mine
Bounce off of me
'coz i'm so strong
My time is coming and it won't be long
Save us!!
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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SONNET. Tell me you stars that our affections move
Tell me you stars that our affections move,
Why made ye me that cruell one to love?
Why burnes my heart her scorned sacrifice,
Whose breast is hard as Chrystall, cold as Ice?
God of Desire! if all thy Votaries
Thou thus repay, succession will grow wise;
No sighs for incense at thy Shrine shall smoke,
Thy Rites will be despis'd, thy Altars broke.
O! or give her my flame to melt that snow
Which yet unthaw'd does on her bosome grow;
Or make me ice, and with her chrystall chaines
Binde up all love within my frozen veines:
poem by Henry King
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Sacred Shrine Vavroovahana Patra
Sacred Shrine of mother Bhandara Gharanee attracts devotees;
Solitude reigns on the shrine providing delight.
Sanctified devotees surrender on mother’s feet;
Serenity of the temple allures devotees with delight.
Simple women, men offer light on the altar;
Silent devotees offering fragrance of incense stick content desire.
Sanctity of the shrine entices chaste women delightfully;
Solitary poet chants mother’s hymns devotionally.
Spring plays on the shrine enthusiastically;
Sanctum of sanctorum smiles with the Deity.
Sandal’s fragrance provides devotion, gaiety;
Saints chant mother’s hymns with delight.
Sages meditate on the altar day and night;
Singers sing mother’s songs with delight.
Sisters and brothers enjoy the beauty with pleasure;
Showering blossoms of blessings on devotees fulfills desires.
Students pray mother for education;
Stream of her bliss flows from the creation.
Sky is transparent beautiful;
Smile of mother encourages devotees to be dutiful.
poem by Vavroovahana Patra
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A Pastoral
Nature feels the touch of noon;
Not a rustle stirs the grass;
Not a shadow flecks the sky,
Save the brown hawk hovering nigh;
Not a ripple dims the glass
Of the wide lagoon.
Darkly, like an armed host
Seen afar against the blue,
Rise the hills, and yellow-grey
Sleeps the plain in cove and bay,
Like a shining sea that dreams
Round a silent coast.
From the heart of these blue hills,
Like the joy that flows from peace,
Creeps the river far below
Fringed with willow, sinuous, slow.
Surely here there seems surcease
From the care that kills.
Surely here might radiant Love
Fill with happiness his cup,
Where the purple lucerne-bloom
Floods the air with sweet perfume,
Nature's incense floating up
To the Gods above.
'Neath the gnarled-boughed apple trees
Motionless the cattle stand;
Chequered cornfield, homestead white,
Sleeping in the streaming light,
For deep trance is o'er the land,
And the wings of peace.
Here, O Power that moves the heart,
Thou art in the quiet air;
Here, unvexed of code or creed,
Man may breathe his bitter need;
Nor with impious lips declare
What Thou wert and art.
All the strong souls of the race
Thro' the aeons that have run,
They have cried aloud to Thee --
"Thou art that which stirs in me!"
As the flame leaps towards the sun
They have sought Thy face.
But the faiths have flowered and flown,
And the truth is but in part;
Many a creed and many a grade
For Thy purpose Thou hast made.
None can know Thee what Thou art,
Fathomless! Unknown!
poem by George Essex Evans
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Oahu
Here on this island, summer never sleeps.
In the green valleys, smoke in cane-time drifts
With mist—frail tide that laps the chasmed deeps
Between the steep clean hills as the sea-tide
Once washed the silent hidden hollow rifts
And unseen valleys of its unborn bride.
Sea-bride, child of earth’s red molten womb,
Daughter of fire and chaos long since sleeping,
Who were the people that made your green hills bloom?
Wedded to the seas they were, like you;
From the dark sea, while you your watch were keeping,
They came to make their destined rendezvous.
The broad bare feet step forth on virgin sand,
And eyes raise to the green eternal hills:
Gray mist, green hills and fertile red-clay land,
Alone no more. The carefree caroling laughter
Drifts inland, where valley mist distills
The songs that shall be sung forever after.
poem by S.J. Fulton
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The Churchyard
HOW slowly creeps the hand of Time
On the old clock’s green-mantled face!
Yea, slowly as those ivies climb,
The hours roll round with patient pace;
The drowsy rooks caw on the tower,
The tame doves hover round and round;
Below, the slow grass hour by hour
Makes green God’s sleeping-ground.
All moves, but nothing here is swift;
The grass grows deep, the green boughs shoot;
From east to west the shadows drift;
The earth feels heavenward underfoot;
The slow stream through the bridge doth stray
With water-lilies on its marge,
And slowly, pil’d with scented hay,
Creeps by the silent barge.
All stirs, but nothing here is loud:
The cushat broods, the cuckoo cries;
Faint, far up, under a white cloud,
The lark trills soft to earth and skies;
And underneath the green graves rest;
And through the place, with slow footfalls,
With snowy cambric on his breast,
The old gray Vicar crawls.
And close at hand, to see him come,
Clustering at the playground gate,
The urchins of the schoolhouse, dumb
And bashful, hang the head and wait;
The little maidens curtsey deep,
The boys their forelocks touch meanwhile,
The Vicar sees them, half asleep,
And smiles a sleepy smile.
Slow as the hand on the clock’s face,
Slow as the white cloud in the sky,
He cometh now with tottering pace
To the old vicarage hard by:
Smother’d it stands in ivy leaves,
Laurels and yews make dark the ground;
The swifts that build beneath the eaves
Wheel in still circles round.
And from the portal, green and dark,
He glances at the church-clock old—
Gray soul! why seek his eyes to mark
The creeping of that finger cold?
He cannot see, but still as stone
He pauses, listening for the chime,
And hears from that green tower intone
The eternal voice of Time.
poem by William Cosmo Monkhouse
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It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
quote by Robert A. Heinlein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Beautiful River
And he showed me a pure River of Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb." -- Rev. xxii. 1
Shall we gather at the river
Where bright angel feet have trod;
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?
CHORUS.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
On the margin of the river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will walk and worship ever,
All the happy, golden day.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
On the bosom of the river,
Where the Saviour-king we own,
We shall meet, and sorrow never
'Neath the glory of the throne. Cho.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
Ere we reach the shining river,
Lay we every burden down;
Grace our spirits will deliver,
And provide a robe and crown. Cho.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
At the smiling of the river,
Rippling with the Saviour's face,
Saints, whom death will never sever,
Lift their songs of saving grace. Cho.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
Soon we'll reach the shining river,
Soon our pilgrimage will cease,
Soon our happy hearts will quiver
With the melody of peace. Cho.
Yes, we'll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river --
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
poem by Robert Wadsworth Lowry
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Shavara Shreekhetra Vavroovahana Patra
Shavara shreekhetra smiles at Koraput;
Serenity pervades with delight.
Sanctity attracts the devotee;
Solitude enhances gaiety.
Silence reigns in the temple shrine;
Shrine is a nectar to devotees as drunkards to wine.
Steps by steps devotees proceed delightfully;
Spectacle of the temple attracts devotees gaily.
Stream of love flows on the shrine;
Silently devotees drink the nectar as drunkard’s wine.
Sanctified shrine’s women after Deepa’s light on the altar;
Sandal’s fragrance enchants all creatures.
Sun beam Kisses the shrine delightfully;
Soul derives Eternal Peace gaily.
Spring plays in the Shrine enthusiastically;
Saintly devotees chant Jagannath’s hymns gaily.
Sky is transparent, blue, beautiful;
Sanctum sanctorium endowed with flowers is mirthful.
Smile of devotees is a Brook of Purity;
Sisters and Brothers chant God’s hymns with gaiety.
poem by Vavroovahana Patra
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Procession of All Souls
Gnarled and blessed
be the hour of autumn
when spotted pears sink
into wet sod, and blessed be
the songs of virgins rising
into the hunchbacked trees.
November dawn.
Down damp stone stairs
we followed the priest,
past leaf-choked wells
and jagged trees,
past the red rage of dogwood
ringing a black lake.
Dies Irae, he intoned,
Dies Illae, day of wrath.
We followed his swinging
censer, trail of smoke:
schoolgirls in gray, novices
in white veils, nuns in ragged black
tapping tortoise canes.
What joy to bear the fear,
to smell orbs of incense
perfuming the rot of leaves,
to cross the stubbled field
as crows rushed and whirled,
pecking at windfall seeds.
We arrived, rainsoaked, awed
to watch young nun-brides
kneel, and spread their thin bodies
across green doors of graves.
poem by Geraldine Connolly
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A Summer Pilgrimage
To kneel before some saintly shrine,
To breathe the health of airs divine,
Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,
The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they
With staff and scallop-shell, my way
To feel, from burdening cares and ills,
The strong uplifting of the hills.
The years are many since, at first,
For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,
I saw on Winnipesaukee fall
The shadow of the mountain wall.
Ah! where are they who sailed with me
The beautiful island-studded sea?
And am I he whose keen surprise
Flashed out from such unclouded eyes?
Still, when the sun of summer burns,
My longing for the hills returns;
And northward, leaving at my back
The warm vale of the Merrimac,
I go to meet the winds of morn,
Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born,
Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy
The hunger of a lowland eye.
Again I see the day decline
Along a ridged horizon line;
Touching the hill-tops, as a nun
Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun.
One lake lies golden, which shall soon
Be silver in the rising moon;
And one, the crimson of the skies
And mountain purple multiplies.
With the untroubled quiet blends
The distance-softened voice of friends;
The girl's light laugh no discord brings
To the low song the pine-tree sings;
And, not unwelcome, comes the hail
Of boyhood from his nearing sail.
The human presence breaks no spell,
And sunset still is miracle!
Calm as the hour, methinks I feel
A sense of worship o'er me steal;
Not that of satyr-charming Pan,
No cult of Nature shaming man,
Not Beauty's self, but that which lives
And shines through all the veils it weaves,--
Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood,
Their witness to the Eternal Good!
And if, by fond illusion, here
The earth to heaven seems drawing near,
And yon outlying range invites
To other and serener heights,
Scarce hid behind its topmost swell,
The shining Mounts Delectable
A dream may hint of truth no less
Than the sharp light of wakefulness.
As through her vale of incense smoke.
Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke,
More than her heathen oracle,
May not this trance of sunset tell
That Nature's forms of loveliness
Their heavenly archetypes confess,
Fashioned like Israel's ark alone
From patterns in the Mount made known?
A holier beauty overbroods
These fair and faint similitudes;
Yet not unblest is he who sees
Shadows of God's realities,
And knows beyond this masquerade
Of shape and color, light and shade,
And dawn and set, and wax and wane,
Eternal verities remain.
O gems of sapphire, granite set!
O hills that charmed horizons fret
I know how fair your morns can break,
In rosy light on isle and lake;
How over wooded slopes can run
The noonday play of cloud and sun,
And evening droop her oriflamme
Of gold and red in still Asquam.
The summer moons may round again,
And careless feet these hills profane;
These sunsets waste on vacant eyes
The lavish splendor of the skies;
Fashion and folly, misplaced here,
Sigh for their natural atmosphere,
And travelled pride the outlook scorn
Of lesser heights than Matterhorn.
But let me dream that hill and sky
Of unseen beauty prophesy;
And in these tinted lakes behold
The trailing of the raiment fold
Of that which, still eluding gaze,
Allures to upward-tending ways,
Whose footprints make, wherever found,
Our common earth a holy ground.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Run To The Hills
Run to the hills
(harris)
White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribes, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own need
We fought him hard we fought him well
Out on the plains we gave him hell
But many came too much for cree
Oh will we ever be set free?
Riding through dustclouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom a stab in the back
Women and children and cowards attack
Run to the hills run for your lives
Run to the hills run for your lives
Soldier blue on the barren wastes
Hunting and killing their game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good indians are tame
Selling them whisky and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old
Run to the hills run for your lives
(repeat to end)
song performed by by Iron Maiden
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Dragon of the Black Pool
Deep the waters of the Black Pool, colored like ink;
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities
have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences—
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon’s doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s” advice.
When the dragon comes, ah!
The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!
Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!
The wind also—still.
Incense-fire dies, ah !
The cups and vessels are cold.
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool’s shore;
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not?
Anniversary hymn
[sung to tune: "All Saints New"]
Our fathers, in the years grown dim, reared slowly, wall by wall
A holy dwelling-place for Him, that filleth all in all.
They wrought His house of faith and prayer, the rainbow round the Throne,
A precious temple builded fair on Christ the Cornerstone.
The Angel of the Golden Reed hath found the measure strait'
He hears the Great Foundation plead for ampler wall and gate.
The living pillars of the Truth grown on from morn to morn,
And still the heresy of youth is age's creed outworn.
But steadfast is their inner shrine wrought of the heart's fine gold,
Its hunger and its thirst divine, with jewels manifold,
Red sard of pain, hope's emerald gleam, white peace, no glory missed
Of righteous life and saintly dream, Jasper to amethyst.
Spirit of Truth, forbid that we who now God's temple are
And keep the faith with minds more free, our father's fabric mar.
Better than thoughts the stars that search is self still sacrificed,
For only Love can build the church whose corner-stone is Christ.
poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Sonnet 08
At last, beloved Nature! I have met
Thee face to face upon thy breezy hills,
And boldly, where thy inmost bowers are set,
Gazed on thee naked in thy mountain rills.
When first I felt thy breath upon my brow,
Tears of strange ecstasy gushed out like rain,
And with a longing, passionate as vain,
I strove to clasp thee. But, I know not how,
Always before me didst thou seem to glide;
And often from one sunny mountain-side,
Upon the next bright peak I saw thee kneel,
And heard thy voice upon the billowy blast;
But, climbing, only reached that shrine to feel
The shadow of a Presence which had passed.
poem by Henry Timrod
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The Times
The times are not degenerate. Man’s faith
Mounts higher than of old. No crumbling creed
Can take from the immortal soul the need
Of that supreme Creator, God. The wraith
Of dead beliefs we cherished in our youth
Fades but to let us welcome new-born Truth.
Man may not worship at the ancient shrine
Prone on his face, in self-accusing scorn.
That night is past. He hails a fairer morn,
And knows himself a something all divine;
No humble worm whose heritage is sin,
But, born of God, he feels the Christ within.
Not loud his prayers, as in the olden time,
But deep his reverence for that mighty force,
That occult working of the great all Source,
Which makes the present era so sublime.
Religion now means something high and broad,
And man stood never half so near to God.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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In My Soul
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,
where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,
where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church
that dissolve, that
dissolve in
God.
poem by Rabia al Basri
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We Are Saints
I’ve been sanctified, set apart, for God’s service from the start,
The very moment that I believed, when Christ’s Spirit I received,
I was indeed, set apart by God, while still upon this earthly sod,
Sealed by the Spirit of Christ, for God’s purpose within this life.
All believers are God’s holy ones, truly set apart, by God’s Son,
Becoming saints while on earth, through the power of New Birth,
Indeed, not by the choice of men, but when we were Born Again,
We’re true saints of The Living God, led on earth by Christ’s rod.
Saints, according to God’s Grace, for His purpose on this place,
To have an impact, in this world, as His Truth we fervently herald,
Truth that states we are saints, regardless of what religion paints,
Saints, chosen by Christ The Lord, truth, that by many is ignored.
We are saints, as God has willed, with His purpose to be fulfilled,
Not simply saints for another time, but on earth by God’s Design,
Separated from this world’s plan, to be used by The Son of Man,
In spreading the Gospel of Christ, while in this present earthly life.
We’re not saints for just above, but here by God for sharing love,
The love of His Saving Gospel, as this for believers is God’s will,
To fill with saints the Church of God, those upon this earthly sod,
Then we can spend Eternal Life, saints together with Jesus Christ.
(Copyright ©01/2012)