From every place below the skies
The grateful song, the fervent prayer,—
The incense of the heart, —may rise
To heaven, and find acceptance there.
--
Every Place a Temple, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "This is that incense of the heart / Whose fragrance smells to heaven" Nathaniel Cotton, The Fireside, stanza 11.John Pierpont
» John Pierpont - all quotes »
Truth is Thy primal word; at thy behest
The generations pass - O aid our quest
For Thee, and set my host of songs on high,
And let my psalmody come very nigh.
My praises as a coronal account,
And let my prayers as Thine incense mount.
Deem precious unto Thee the poor man's song,
As those that to thine altar did belong.
Rise, O my blessing, to the lord of birth,
The breeding, quickening, righteous force of earth.
Do Thou receive it with acceptant nod,
My choicest incense offered to my God.
And let my meditation grateful be,
For all my being is athirst for Thee.
from Millgram, A. E., Anthology of Medieval Hebrew Literature, Abelard, 1961.Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid‎
Solemnly seemest like a vapoury cloud
To rise before me — Rise, oh, ever rise;
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“We’ve digitized the revelations - does our rehearsed recitation go any deeper than our throats? Our calls to prayer they seem to rise up to the skies, conferences and lectures, seminars for you and I. The words that blow away with the nasheed that make us cry, yet why are the drums so silent?”
Dawud Wharnsby
“O star on the breast of the river!
O marvel of bloom and grace!
Did you fall right down from heaven,
Out of the sweetest place?
You are white as the thoughts of an angel,
Your heart is steeped in the sun;
Did you grow in the Golden City,
My pure and radiant one?”
“Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven;
None gave me my saintly white;
It slowly grew from the darkness,
Down in the dreary night.
From the ooze of the silent river,
I win my glory and grace,
White souls fall not, O my poet,
They rise to the sweetest place.”Mary Butts
Just an observation: it is impossible to be both grateful and depressed. Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up.
Steve Maraboli
Pierpont, John
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