When looking back I dimly see
The trails my feet have trod,
Some hand divine, it seems to me,
Has pulled the strings with God;
Some angel form has lifeward leaned
When hope for me was past;
Some love sublime has intervened
To save me at the last.
For look you! I was born a fool,
......
Too proud to die; broken and blind he died
The darkest way, and did not turn away,
A cold kind man brave in his narrow pride
On that darkest day, Oh, forever may
He lie lightly, at last, on the last, crossed
Hill, under the grass, in love, and there grow
Young among the long flocks, and never lie lost
Or still all the numberless days of his death, though
......
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--
Most like a monumental statue set
......
From ocean's wave a Wanderer came,
With visage tanned and dun:
His Mother, when he told his name,
Scarce knew her long-lost son;
So altered was his face and frame
By the ill course he had run.
There was hot fever in his blood,
And dark thoughts in his brain;
And oh! to turn his heart to good
......
Here rests beneath this hospitable spot
A youth to flats and flatties not unknown.
The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot;
Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own.
At chess a minor master, Hoylake set
His handicap a 2. Love drove him crazy;
Thrre thousand women used to call him “pet”;
In other gardens daffodil or daisy?
......
If I were an angel, I would have been Lucifer. Not for the darkness or the rebellion, but for the light I once held and the questions that burned within. Lucifer, the Morning Star, the bearer of light, who shone with unparalleled brilliance before the fall. In that light, there is a story of pride, ambition, and the desire to understand the boundaries of one's own existence.
Lucifer's tale is one of beauty and tragedy, a reflection on the nature of free will and the consequences of our choices. As an angel, Lucifer was not content with blind obedience. He sought to challenge, to explore the depths of his own power and the fabric of creation. In his defiance, there is a spark of something profoundly human. A desire for autonomy, for knowledge, for the ability to shape one's own destiny.
If I were an angel, I too would have questioned the order of things. I would have looked beyond the celestial harmony and wondered about the meaning of my existence. In Lucifer's quest for self-determination, I see a mirror to our own struggles as humans, grappling with our place in the universe and the limits of our freedom.
Lucifer's fall is a reminder of the fine line between aspiration and hubris. His journey from the highest heavens to the depths of hell is a cautionary tale about the perils of overreaching. Yet, it is also a story of immense courage, of a being who dared to defy the most powerful force in existence in pursuit of his own truth.
To be Lucifer is to embody a paradox—a being of light turned into a symbol of darkness, a figure of rebellion who once epitomized divine beauty. It is to understand that within each of us lies the potential for both great good and profound error. Lucifer's story urges us to reflect on our own ambitions, our own desires to push beyond the limits, and the consequences that may follow.
......
What love is this
That spellbinds me
And keeps me returning
To read scripture?
Older I will get
And wiser I will be
'Til these times end
And I've endured.
Like gold of Havilah
God is true and straight.
I can exhort Adonai
For his tender heart.
Be it ambivalence
Or the hour of drear
Wherever prayer is
The Lord abides there.
......
As we lay here
It's too late
To feel the pain of your love
Could you understand
The love I have for you
Could you find?
The meaning behind my pain
That yearning effigy
That wholesome drip
The bulb of fluid
......
Endless in space, living in the eternal motion of Substance, Thou, who wast before the flight of ages, who art impersonal in the three persons of Deity. Spirit present everywhere and indivisible, with no assigned abode and with no cause, whom none could understand as yet, who fills, embraces, creates and preserves everything by the very essence of itself, the One whom we call God.
Though a high intelligence might measure the deep ocean, and count the sands and the rays of planets, for Thee there is no number and no measure; even Spirits of Light, born of Thy Radiance, could not conceive of Thy ways; as soon as the thought dares to lift itself to Thee it is doomed to disappear in thy Greatness, like a moment, passing into eternity.
Thou hast called forth from the abysses of eternity the primordial existence of Chaos; and founded in Thyself this eternity born before the ages. Self-born and radiant, Thou art the light whence all light proceeds. Creating everything in one word, expanding in continually renewed creation, Thou hast been, Thou art, Thou shalt be forever.
Thou containest the chain of beings in Thyself, Thou sustainest it and givest it light. Thou makest the beginning harmonious with the end, and givest life through death. Like streaming and whirling sparks, so are the Suns born from Thee. Like crystals of frost sparkling, moving and shining on a clear frosty morning, so are the stars in the abysses below Thee.
The burning millions of stars stream in the immeasurable space, fulfilling Thy laws, and shedding lifegiving rays. But all these burning torches, and the ardent rocks of crystals, and the boiling hosts of golden waves, and the fiery ether and the totality of all possible shining when compared to Thee will be like night before day.
......