#WingedWordsWindsday: 2022/12/28 -- Angelic Poems for the Yuletide Season

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 9: December 28, 2022

 

 

A Garland of Angelic Poems for the Yuletide Season

 

Editor’s Note

                As the Yuletide season continues, pictures and stories about angels are everywhere. Various types of angels, some named, and others unnamed, are present in all the major spiritual traditions of the world, and their depictions can provide comfort, hope, and inspiration during challenging times. Here is a quartet of my favorite poems about angels, all of which draw on classical traditions about these amazing denizens of the unseen realms.

 

“Abou Ben Adhem”

By Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

                Editor’s Note: Abou Ben Adhem (a/k/a Ibrahim ibn Adham, ca. 718-782 CE) was an early Muslim saint. You can learn more about his life and legacy @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_ibn_Adham.

 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold: —

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

“What writest thou?” — The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”

“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still; and said, “I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”

 

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

 

“Uriel”

By Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

                Editor’s Note: Uriel is regarded as the archangel of poetry and prophecy in Jewish and Christian traditions, and he is especially prominent in the angelology of the Eastern Orthodox churches. Read about the archangel Uriel @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriel.

 

It fell in the ancient periods

   Which the brooding soul surveys,

Or ever the wild Time coined itself

   Into calendar months and days.

 

This was the lapse of Uriel,

Which in Paradise befell.

Once, among the Pleiads walking,

Seyd overheard the young gods talking;

And the treason, too long pent,

To his ears was evident.

The young deities discussed

Laws of form, and meter just,

Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,

What subsisteth, and what seems.

One, with low tones that decide,

And doubt and reverend use defied,

With a look that solved the sphere,

And stirred the devils everywhere,

Gave his sentiment divine

Against the being of a line.

"Line in nature is not found;

Unit and universe are round;

In vain produced, all rays return;

Evil will bless, and ice will burn."

As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,

A shudder ran around the sky;

The stern old war-gods shook their heads,

The seraphs frowned from myrtle-beds;

Seemed to the holy festival

The rash word boded ill to all;

The balance-beam of Fate was bent;

The bounds of good and ill were rent;

Strong Hades could not keep his own,

But all slid to confusion.

 

A sad self-knowledge, withering, fell

On the beauty of Uriel;

In heaven once eminent, the god

Withdrew, that hour, into his cloud;

Whether doomed to long gyration

In the sea of generation,

Or by knowledge grown too bright

To hit the nerve of feebler sight.

Straightway, a forgetting wind

Stole over the celestial kind,

And their lips the secret kept,

If in ashes the fire-seed slept.

But now and then, truth-speaking things

Shamed the angels' veiling wings;

And, shrilling from the solar course,

Or from fruit of chemic force,

Procession of a soul in matter,

Or the speeding change of water,

Or out of the good of evil born,

Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,

And a blush tinged the upper sky,

And the gods shook, they knew not why.

 

Seven Princes of Heaven (i.e., the seven archangels of traditional angelic lore) by Pedro Fernández de Murcia, circa 1514. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Angels of Man”

By Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

                Editor’s Note: This poem is about three well-known archangels (Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael), all of whom are attested in the scriptures of the Abrahamic religions. Traditionally, the total number of archangels is believed to be seven (see, for example, the article @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Archangels).

 

The word of the Lord of the outer worlds

Went forth on the deeps of space,

That Michael, Gabriel, Rafael,

Should stand before his face,

The seraphs of his threefold will,

Each in his ordered place.

 

Brave Michael, the right hand of God,

Strong Gabriel, his voice,

Fair Rafael, his holy breath

That makes the world rejoice, —

Archangels of omnipotence,

Of knowledge, and of choice;

 

Michael, angel of loveliness

In all things that survive,

And Gabriel, whose part it is

To ponder and contrive,

And Rafael, who puts the heart

In everything alive.

 

Came Rafael, the enraptured soul,

Stainless as wind or fire,

The urge within the flux of things,

The life that must aspire,

With whom is the beginning,

The worth, and the desire;

 

And Gabriel, the all-seeing mind,

Bringer of truth and light,

Who lays the courses of the stars

In their stupendous flight,

And calls the migrant flocks of spring

Across the purple night;

 

And Michael, the artificer

Of beauty, shape, and hue,

Lord of the forges of the sun,

The crucible of the dew,

And driver of the plowing rain

When the flowers are born anew.

 

Then said the Lord: "Ye shall account

For the ministry ye hold,

Since ye have been my sons to keep

My purpose from of old.

How fare the realms within your sway

To perfections still untold?"

 

Answered each as he had the word.

And a great silence fell

On all the listening hosts of heaven

To hear their captains tell,—

With the breath of the wind, the call of a bird,

And the cry of a mighty bell.

 

Then the Lord said: "The time is ripe

For finishing my plan,

And the accomplishment of that

For which all time began.

Therefore on you is laid the task

Of the fashioning of man;

 

"In your own likeness shall he be,

To triumph in the end.

I only give him Michael's strength

To guard him and defend,

With Gabriel to be his guide,

And Rafael his friend.

 

"Ye shall go forth upon the earth,

And make there Paradise,

And be the angels of that place

To make men glad and wise,

With loving-kindness in their hearts,

And knowledge in their eyes.

 

"And ye shall be man's counsellors

That neither rest nor sleep,

To cheer the lonely, lift the frail,

And solace them that weep.

And ever on his wandering trail

Your watch-fires ye shall keep;

 

"Till in the far years he shall find

The country of his quest,

The empire of the open truth,

The vision of the best,

Foreseen by every mother saint

With her new-born on her breast."

 

“Azraël”

By Robert Gilbert Welsh (1869-1924)

                Editor’s Note: Azraël is the proper name given to the Angel of Death in Jewish, Islamic, and Sikh traditions. This angel also appears (in disguise) as a main character in George MacDonald’s classic children’s novel, At the Back of the North Wind (1871). You can learn more about Azraël @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azrael.

 

The angels in high places

Who minister to us,

Reflect God's smile, -- their faces

Are luminous;

Save one, whose face is hidden,

(The Prophet saith),

The unwelcome, the unbidden,

Azraël, Angel of Death.

 

And yet that veiled face, I know

Is lit with pitying eyes,

Like those faint stars, the first to glow

Through cloudy winter skies.

 

That they may never tire,

Angels, by God’s decree,

Bear wings of snow and fire, --

Passion and purity;

Save one, all unavailing,

(The Prophet saith),

His wings are gray and trailing,

Azraël, Angel of Death.

 

And yet the souls that Azraël brings

Across the dark and cold,

Look up beneath those folded wings,

And find them lined with gold.

 

Some Concluding Thoughts:

                Although angels are depicted in various and sundry ways throughout the world’s spiritual traditions, it is noteworthy that many angels are depicted in very similar ways across cultures and religions. Studying comparative angelology can help us to understand how our worldwide spiritual traditions are interrelated in fascinating and surprising ways and equip us to build bridges of mutual respect and appreciation with our neighbors both far and near.