A Lost Soul on Judgement Morning

The last and dreadful day has comeJUDGEMENT
The trumpet loudly sounds
The sleeping millions in the earth
Rise from the quaking ground!

O fearful sight! Where can I hide ?
What doleful wails I hear !
The moon turns now to bloody red,
The stars fall from their sphere !
The isles and mountains flee away,
The sun – it will not shine.
My eyes behold Christ Jesus come,
To judge the works of time !
No place to hide!

I care not now what people think
Or if they hear my cries.
My money and my pleasures, too,
Have vanished with my pride.
Down on my knees I fall, and then
Confessing Christ as “Lord of all”  –
I have no stubborn, proud heart now,
O hear the Great Judge call!
Too late to pray!

My sins are trailing my poor soulGrunewald Resurrection
Up to the throne of God.
Why do they follow, even here?
They will not pass His Word !
With piercing look, He views my works,
There’s nothing I can hide.
Where is one of my earthly friends?
Come! Stand here by my side!
No, now I stand ALONE!

I glance at Him, the Righteous Judge,
He says, “Depart from Me”!
I drop into the fiery pit
For all ETERNITY!
God! Give me just ONE moment now
Of time! Please hear my cry!
(Despairing thought-
‘Twas I who chose To EVER, EVER DIE!)
No more hope!

A thousand tongues could ne’er describe
The anguish that I feel,
Too late, too late now to repent,
Hell fire is all too REAL!
Forever now while ages roll,
My soul shall scream and burn.
Though torment reigns, my mind is clear –
In life, God’s love I spurned.
Forever doomed!

No water here, no light, no rest,
No love, no joy, no friend,
No children dear, no cheering song,
No hope my fate will end.
Writhing in flames, pain racks my soul,
And piercing cries I hear.
My wretched soul God sees it not –
‘Tis more than I can bear! Forgotten eternally!

Dear friend, today a loving Lord
Would save you from this fate.
Come humbly now, accept His grace
Before it is too late!

Author unknown

courtesy of: e-menno.org

Washed up and hung on the line to Dryden…

…Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen iambics, but mild anagram.
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways…

John Dryden: MacFlecknoe

Yes – it could be said of me and my scrawling.
(I dabble in acrostics as my long-suffering poetry acquaintances can testify).

John Dryden wrote lines 3 centuries ago that still sting poetasters like me.
It hurts so good.

He could have been writing part of my unapproved biography here  (just call me Zimri):

…In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem’d to be
Not one, but all Mankind’s Epitome.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long:
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon:
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking;
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy!
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both (to show his judgment) in extremes:
So over violent, or over civil,
That every man, with him, was god or devil…

 John Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel

John Dryden was a great poet. Not only could he write nasty satires about the political movers and shakers of his day thinly disguised as Old Testament history; he also wrote thunderous lyrics such as one of my all-time favorite poems  A Song For St. Cecelia’s Day, 1687.

Talk about a true Rock Star !  He was Poet Laureate of England for a while.

Dryden was born of Puritan parents and became an Anglican – only to convert to Roman Catholicism later in his life. We can forgive him for that.

You can learn way too much about his poetry here – really funny stuff, some of it.

I leave you with the celestially stupendous final lines of the above-mentioned Song for St. Cecelia:

♪♫  Grand Chorus  ♪♫♪

As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
To all the bless’d above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.