Doom

“ Never could I describe the strange Doom's-day shock with which such a sound would recall me from far depths of chaos to recollection of myself: for often-times, both waking and in nightmare, I did not know on which planet I was, nor in which Age, but felt myself adrift in the great gulf of time and space and circumstance, without bottom for my consciousness to stand upon ”

“ As if the hermit were more immune from death than the hunter! Overhead hover fearful fire-breathing demons bearing beautiful women head downwards to their doom. Towards the centre of the entire picture, of which this forms but a half, sweeps Death, a sombre flying figure with a great scythe, whom cripples and the sorrowful invoke in vain; underneath are his slain, upon whose bodies swoop demons with long pitchforks and angels with long crosses, fighting furiously for the spoil, in a game of pull devil, pull angel. ”

“ Lights up the impenetrable horror of gloom,
Chilling the very soul, like an impending doom.
Is this the lone region of death and fell despair?
And is hell with all its fury lurking there?
Do Satan and Apollyon roam those deadly deeps,
Gloating o’er the suffering of the damned that ne’er sleeps?
Was’t there the rebellious hosts of heaven found their doom,
To shriek in nameless torture in so dread a tomb?
Hist! hist! did ye hear it? that shuddering roll
Of frenzied anguish, creeping up from damnation’s goal?
O relentless Time! Let’s flee away from this dread sphere ”

“ Or, it may be, with demons, who impair The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey In melancholy bosoms, such as were Of moody texture from their earliest day, And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. ”

“ I am son to a noble father, and have a goddess for my mother, but the hands of doom and death overshadow me all as surely. The day will come, either at dawn or dark, or at the noontide, when one shall take my life also in battle, either with his spear, or with an arrow sped from his bow. ”

“ But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. ”

“ Everywhere, the old order changing and disappearing, only to recreate itself in form ever more fantastic and enfeebled, a dead being, and yet inextricably bound up with the life of the new age. And over all, the shadow of Doom, gigantic, threatening, omnipotent. ”

“ In the day we eat Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die! How dies the Serpent? he hath eaten and lives, And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, Irrational till then. For us alone Was death invented? or to us denied This intellectual food, for beasts reserved? For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy The good befallen him, author unsuspect, Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile. What fear I then? rather, what know to fear Under this ignorance of good and evil, Of God or death, of law or penalty? ”

“ Ever the cry that a Hand will save, Ever the end in a fast-closed grave; Ever and ever the useless prayer, Beating the walls of a mute despair. Doom, all doom—nay then, not all doom! Rises a hope from the fast-closed tomb. ”

“ The gods are showing now that the time of my doom is come. Blind though I am, I myself will guide my own steps to the spot where I am doomed to die, but thou alone, O Theseus, shalt know where is my resting-place, and thou shalt tell it to none on earth save when thy death-hour comes, and then shalt thou disclose it to thy eldest born. ”

“ Who shall unseal the years, the years!—
O the doom that gave no token,
When nothing of bale saw we:
O the doom by someone spoken,
O the heart by someone broken,
The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me. ”

“ Unhappy one, thou art sorely changed since I beheld thee on earth with the helmet plume fanning thy hot and bloody brow as thy right hand smote down the blessed ones of the earth. The Almighty doom, the evil and the tormenting place, the vile companions, have each in their turn done the work of retribution upon thee: thou art indeed more stern and more terrible, but thou art not changed beyond the knowledge of one whom thou hast hunted and hounded, and sought to slay utterly. ”

“ There are some who claim on the night before to have seen upon his strangely ascetic face that shadow of doom which is summed up in the one word 'fey.' The hand of coming death may already have lain cold upon his soul. ”

“ ON THE APPROACH OF AN AWFUL DOOM My dear little Anglo-Saxons, Celt-Iberians and Teutonico-Latin oddities—-The time has come to convey, impart and make known to you the dreadful conclusions and horrible prognostications that flow, happen, deduce, derive and are drawn from the truly abominable conditions of the social medium in which you and I and all poor devils are most fatally and surely bound to draw out our miserable existence. ”

“ I'm the man that should have Doom at its very best, for I could bide among my people here, and like them, and make them like me, without a thought of rambling about the world. 'Mildewing with a ditch between you and life' my grandfather used to call it, when old age took him back from his gaieties abroad. ”

“ In sooth, this earth is a lovely place;
Pass not in darkness over her face;
Yet call back thy words of doom—
They are too gay and too fair for the tomb. ”

“ Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling,
With all the dark solemnities which show
That Death is in the dwelling!
O very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,
But, smitten by the common stroke of doom,
The Corpse lies on the trestles! ”

“ No hostile hand can antedate my doom, Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. Fix’d is the term to all the race of earth; And such the hard condition of our birth: No force can then resist, no flight can save, All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. No more—but hasten to thy tasks at home, There guide the spindle, and direct the loom: Me glory summons to the martial scene, The field of combat is the sphere for men. Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, The first in danger as the first in fame. ”

“ But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate. ”

“ All the souls that have lived on the earth, good and bad, saints and sinners, Devil and demons, will stand before the Throne and be judged. The words, thoughts, and deeds of men and devils shall be made known. The final doom of the Devil and his angels will be shown up in detail before an assembled universe: the Godhead, angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, and all that have lived upon this planet. ”

“ "Look here," he cries (to give him words) ,
"Thou feather'd clay—thou scum of birds!"
Flirting the rustling plumage in her eyes,—
"Look here, thou vile predestined sinner,
Doom'd to be roasted for a dinner,
Behold those lovely variegated dyes! ”

“ Fervent faith, profound repentance,
Holy hours of stern self-sentence—
These alone can victory bring
When Death's dread sting shall wring us.
[87]
FROM "THE LAST JUDGMENT" (After Goronwy Owen, 1728-1769, next to Dafydd ab Gwilym, the greatest poet who sang in the old Welsh metres)
Day of Doom, at thy glooming
May Earth be but meet for thee! ”

“ Him praising and thanking, so verily we have been in the foresight of God, loved and known in His endless purpose from without beginning. In which unbegun love He made us; and in the same love He keepeth us and never sufFereth us to be hurt [in manner] by which our bliss might be lost. And therefore when the Doom is given and we be all brought up above, then shall we clearly see in God the secret things which be now hid to us. Then shall none of us be stirred to say in any wise: Lord, if it had been thus, then it had been full well; but we shall say all with one voice: ”

“ Hell is destruction from the presence of the Lord, 2 Thess. i. 9. It is a perpetual banishment from the fountain of all good. This is the choice of sinners; and so shall their doom be, to their eternal confusion. ”

“ No thought within her bosom stirs
But wakes some feeling dark and dread:
God keep thee from a doom like hers—
Of living when the hopes are dead! ”

“ No living man has ever
Gone up to Heaven—for all are doomed to die.—
Some by the sword, the dagger, or the spear,
And some, devoured by roaring beasts of prey;
Some peacefully upon their beds, and others
Snatched suddenly from life, endure the lot
Ordained by the Creator. ”

“ Ghosties, ghoulies, unseen terrors, warlocks, witches, succubi, and baneful doom are all OK by me, but anti-gravs, blasters, and characters that have to learn all over again how to build a fire because they are so super-efficient they never knew how—Uh uh! ”

“ 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out his hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! ”

“ And suddenly through the drifting brume
The blare of the horns began to ring,
Like the terrible trumpet shock
Of Regnarock,
On the Day of Doom! ”

“ Is there some nameless boding sent,
Like a noiseless voice from the tomb?—
A spirit note from the other world,
To warn of death and doom? ”

“ Into the wild wood's covert, among caves and rocks he is roaming, fierce as a bull, wretched and forlorn on his joyless path,480 still seeking to put from him the doom spoken at Earth's central shrine: but that doom ever lives, ever flits around him.
str. 2. Dreadly, in sooth, dreadly doth the wise augur move me, who approve not, nor am able to deny. How to speak, I know not ”

“ That I thine holy Name may praise.
And teach the Sons of Men thy ways.
The Day of Doom The security of the world before Christ’s coming to judgment.
I. 1
Still was the night, serene and bright,
when all Men sleeping lay;
Calm was the season, and carnal reason
thought so ’twould last for aye.
“Soul, take thine ease, let sorrow cease;
much good thou hast in store:“
This was their Song, their Cups among,
the evening before.
II. 2
Wallowing in all kind of Sin,
vile Wretches lay secure ”

“ The dusk of many a cloudlike age and clime.
No spirit in shape of light and darkness wrought,
No faith, no fear, no dream, no rapture, nought
That blooms in wisdom, nought that burns in crime,
No virtue girt and armed and helmed with light,
No love more lovely than the snows are white,
No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb,
No song-bird singing from some live soul's height,
But he might hear, interpret, or illume
With sense invasive as the dawn of doom. ”

“ Aim'd at her destin'd Head, which made her fly,Pag. 2.
Tho' She was doom'd to Death, and fated not to dye.
Smith.How came She that fear'd no Danger in the Line before, to be scar'd in this, Mr. Bayes?
Bayes.Why then you may have it chas'd if you will; for I hope a Man may run away without being afraid, mayn't he?
Johns.But pray give me leave; how was She doom'd to Death, if She was fated not to die; are not Doom and Fate, much the same thing? ”

“ Shall we think that our prayers can avert a doom woven with the skein of events? To change a particle of our fate, might change the destiny of millions! Shall the link forsake the chain, and yet the chain be unbroken? ”

“ So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire;
So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death! ”

“ VI Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore—
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two. ”

“ And the ancient demon, the spirit of prehistoric confusion, of hoary chaos, rejoiced in the destruction of things, while the wild eyes of the madman reflected horror, like the horror of the death agonies of some monster. ”

“ It is the place of skulls, where death holds his carnival in companionship with worms, and hell laughs in the face of heaven. Dark storms are gathering there—convolving clouds, charged with no common wrath. Terrors set themselves in battle-array before the Son of God; and tempests burst upon him, which might sweep all mankind in a moment to eternal ruin. ”

“ I seat myself beside the men who pass along among the tombs, and in untimely season I assume the form of the dead; and if I catch any one, I at once destroy him with my sword. But if I cannot destroy him, I cause him to be possessed with a demon, and to devour his own flesh, and the hair to fall off his chin. ”