He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. [Psalms 91:11]
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. [Shakespeare, Macbeth IV, iii, 22]
The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.
[Richard Purdy Wilbur, Love Calls Us to the Things of This World, 1956]
I looked over Jordan and what did I see? …
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
[Swing Low, Sweet Chariot]
“Pass in, pass in,” the angels say,
“In to the upper doors,
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise.”
[Ralph Waldo Emerson. Merlin I]
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Angels are a fascinating and deep subject worth pondering. A post on the subject is in the making, but I thought I’d introduce it in this manner, touching on some views of angels over time in quotes. If you want to read a poem of mine about angels, with some appended paragraphs from Swedenborg, see this post on Ghulf Genes. I collect my poems on that site, although that poem, and an earlier companion to it, reachable here, belong in the context of the borderzone.
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The painting is by Hieronymus Bosch, Ascent of the Blessed. Bosch (1450-1516), a Dutch painter, long predates any modern discussions of near-death experiences in many of which tunnels with a light at the end—and sometimes pairs of guides or helpers, and a luminous being present at arrival—became common enough to be abbreviated as NDEs.
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