david hill

To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart;
To some a weariness worse than any smart;
To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern;
Madness to some; to some the shaking dart
Of hideous death still following as they turn;
To some a hunger that will not depart.

GM

Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love;
Wither with gracious cold what demons dare
Shoot from my hell into my world above;
Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear,
And flutter far into the inane and bare,
Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear.

‘Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
It is the human creative agony,
Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,
Or tighten on the team the rigid rein.
Many will rather lie among the slain
Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain—
Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.

GM

(click image to enlarge)

this is dated from 1567 by Peter Bruegel. Perhaps a better title might be “the battle of the piggy banks and strong boxes”. After all – the warriors at left are pottery and not bags. This print has been called “a satire on the forces of war and plunder…one of the least complicated subjects by Bruegel to read”. Wealth fights wealth in a mad dehumanized melee. Mammon and murder, now and forever, one and inseparable. In the words of Dr. Barnouw: “All wars are engendered by greed. it is not the poor who make war but the rich who rob each other…Strong boxes and barrels filled…with gold ducats…those are the forces that clash on each battlefield. Below the engraving are three couplets in Latin, and three in Flemish, the latter supplying a rhymed text. Freely translated, the Flemish runs:

Have at it, you chests, pots, and fat piggy banks!-
All for gold and for goods you are fighting in ranks.

If any say different, they are not speaking true –
That’s why we’re resisting the way that we do…

They’re seeking for ways now to drag us all under;
But there’d be no such wars, were there nothing to plunder!

Translation of Latin caption: What riches are, what is a vast heap of yellow metal, a strong-box filled with new coins, among such enticements and ranks of thieves, the fierce hook will indicate to all. Booty makes a thief, ardent zeal serves up every evil, and a pillage suitable for fierce spoils.

With every haunting trouble then, great or small, the loss of thousands or the lack of a shilling, go to God, and appeal to him, the God of your life, to deliver you, his child, from that which is unlike him, therefore does not belong to you, but is antagonistic to your nature. If your trouble is such that you cannot appeal to him, the more need you should appeal to him! Where one cannot go to God, there is something specially wrong. If you let thought for the morrow, or the next year, or the next month, distress you; if you let the chatter of what is called the public, peering purblind into the sanctuary of motive, annoy you; if you seek or greatly heed the judgment of men, capable or incapable, you set open your windows to the mosquitoes of care, to drown with their buzzing the voice of the Eternal!
GM

If you would like to read the whole message – go here.

a loud clear voice doth call –
“Make your feet clean and enter the hall.”
They hear, they stoop, they gather each a crumb.
Oh, the deaf people! Would they were also dumb!
Hear how they talk, and lack of Christ deplore.
Stamping with muddy feet about the door,
And will not wipe them clean to walk upon His floor!

a multitude near by,
In creed and quarrel, sure disciples all!
Gladly they would, they say, enter the hall.
But cannot, the stone threshold is so high.
From unseen hand, full many a feeding crumb,
Slow dropping o’er the threshold high doth come:
They gather and eat, with much disputing hum.
GM

This is an image I have in Pyjamas Studio done by Albrecht Durer.
The image was done in 1493. Have a great Easter!
Click on image to see a larger version