Omen

“ Hence the omen-seeker comes to prefer the sacrificed animal, as likely to be filled with the divine spirit through contact with the altar. And, again, if we are to understand the most primitive thought, we probably ought to conceive of it as regarding the omen not as a mere sign, but in some confused sense as a cause of that which is to happen. By sympathetic magic the flight of the bird, or the appearance of the entrails, is mysteriously connected, as cause with effect, with the event which is desired or dreaded. ”

“ As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. ”

“ One general remark, however, it is important to make in regard to omens. An omen is not conceived to be a mere sign of what is destined to be—it is conceived as causing, in some mysterious way, the event it forebodes ”

“ If it be gloomy, forbidding, awkward, or unpleasant, it is an unlucky omen, and the subsequent event, with which the mind associates it, will be unfavourable, but if pleasant, then it is a good omen, and prognosticates pleasant occurrences. ”

“ I seem, as I have said, to have been dreaming a long dream: and before I quite wake I see the gods growing fainter and fainter, year by year and century by century, while men and women believed in them less and less, until—when they were well-nigh forgotten, or thought of only as poets’ fables—there came a great loud cry which made the whole world sigh and tremble:—
“Pan is Dead!”
men heard all Nature cry; and they knew it to mean that the last of the gods was no more; that a new time had come for the world. ”

“ Few—no such days as those seem now ever to be born. Sometimes we indeed gaze through the face into the heart of the sky, and for a moment feel that the ancient glory of the heavens has returned on our dream of life. ”

“ THE TRUTH OF PRESENTIMENTS.
I felt my sorrow ere it came,
As storms are felt on high,
Before a single cloud denote
Their presence on the sky.
The heart has omens deep and true,
That ask no aid from words ”

“ The invocation implies the idea that thunder is caused by the Mahābhārata heroes, Arjuna and Sahādēva.9 To dream of a temple car in motion, foretells the death of a near relative. Night, but not day dreams, are considered as omens for good or evil. ”

“ At the moment of quitting it, fears, terrors, quiverings, mortal sweats, and a lethargic stupor come and overwhelm us; but, as soon as we are out of it, we pass into delightful meadows, where the purest air is breathed, where sacred concerts and discourses are heard; where, in short, one is impressed with celestial visions. ”

“ But not only was the changing recurrence of dreary winter and gladsome summer joined by affecting analogies with the human doom of death and hope of another life. The phenomena of the skies, the impressive succession of day and night, also were early seized upon and made to blend their shadows and lights, by means of imaginative suggestions, into an image of the decease and resurrection of man. ”

“ Similarly omens, from being divine messages, each relating to a particular undertaking, may come to be merely occurrences that encourage or discourage a man, or a tribe, at any time; because, by tradition, they are lucky or unlucky. Or practically the same result may be reached by philosophy: as with those Stoics who explained that omens are prophetic not as sent by the gods, but as involved in the same procession of fatal events. ”

“ In the course of our enquiry it has, I trust, been made clear that there is another natural phenomenon to which the conception of death and resurrection is as applicable as to sunset and sunrise, and which, as a matter of fact, has been so conceived and represented in folk-custom. ”

“ Note.—Things which are accidentally the causes of hope or fear are called good or evil omens. ”

“ How easily can the heart change its mood from the awful to the solemn—from the solemn to the sweet—and from the sweet to the gay—while the mirth of this careless moment is unconsciously tempered by the influence of that holy hour that has subsided but not died, and continues to colour the most ordinary emotion, as the common things of earth look all lovelier in imbibed light, even after the serene moon that had yielded it is no more visible in her place! ”

“ His face was like the autumn sky, overcast one moment and bright the next. ”

“ The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. ”

“ The vacant evening, the remembrances of the childish joys of Christmas, the starry heaven, looking down from overhead, which magically illuminates all dark wishes of man, like flowers in the night,—these and the silence surcharged and burdened his forlorn soul, and he pressed the only hand which human kind at this moment extended to him. ”

“ And yet the human spirit lies at rest amid this storm, peaceful as a quiet moon above a windy night. In me, at this moment, all is gentle peace. I see my own little life-brook running by me, falling, with all the rest, into the river of Time. ”

“ To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on the plains beneath. ”

“ To-day there are many, an ever-swelling number, who behold with joy the gates ajar, who standing in the twilight catch momentary glimpses of dawn upon the horizon of time, who know by personal experience that they have come into touch with a region where vast schemes are conceived, and universal laws of boundless magnitude connected with the soul's eternal pilgrimage are carried out. ”

“ Under a vast and starless sky
I saw the immortal moment lie.
One instant I, an instant, knew
As God knows all. And it and you
I, above Time, oh, blind! could see
In witless immortality.
I saw the marble cup; the tea,
Hung on the air, an amber stream;
I saw the fire's unglittering gleam,
The painted flame, the frozen smoke.
No more the flooding lamplight broke
On flying eyes and lips and hair;
But lay, but slept unbroken there,
On stiller flesh, and body breathless,
And lips and laughter stayed and deathless,
And words on which no silence grew.
Light was more alive than you. ”

“ Less usual events, such as strange animals, lightning, eclipses, shooting-stars; which come to be considered as signs by being connected in imagination with interesting events which happen soon after them, such as a failure in hunting, an attack by enemies, a death in the tribe, the wreck of a canoe; though the connexions are irregular and never intelligible, and are accepted not as a matter of course, but as mysterious, magical and portentous: they are Omens. They acquire the hold upon men that belongs to the growing body of superstition. ”

“ The angels left them as they entered the primeval night of chaos, the shoreless ocean between the sensuous and spiritual life. For alone with God through chaos do we arrive at the sensuous body; alone with God in chaos do we leave this body of corruption, from which is evolved the Body of the Spirit, 'glorious and unchangeable.' And again is clasped the thread of Identity, on which are strung the pearls of memory, and the Past and Future of Time become the Eternal Present! ”

“ When frail Nature can no more, Then the Spirit strikes the hour: My servant Death, with solving rite, Pours finite into infinite. Wilt thou freeze love's tidal flow, Whose streams through Nature circling go? Nail the wild star to its track On the half-climbed zodiac? Light is light which radiates, Blood is blood which circulates, Life is life which generates, And many-seeming life is one,— Wilt thou transfix and make it none? ”

“ Which scarce has risen ere it die;
Or to a bird, whose rapid flight
Eludes the dazed observer's sight,
Or a stray shaft of glancing light,
That breaks upon the gathered gloom
Which veils some monumental tomb;
Or some sweet Spring flowers' fleeting bloom;—
Mixed part of reason, part belief,
Of pain and pleasure, joy and grief,
As changeful as the Spring, and brief;—
A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife,
With change on change for ever rife:—
This is the thing we know as life. ”

“ Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. ”

“ It was the thunder of dawn, the crashing beauty of the sun. Slowly, majestically it loomed into view. Its brilliance was blinding, dazzling. It burned the eyes of Hwei-Ti yet he could not turn them away. One by one the star-lanterns flickered out. His body commenced to tremble. It was the most exalted moment of his life. It was like in truth a journey to the sun. It was a beauty too intense for his poor mind to absorb.
The roar of the waves upon the coral beach intensified. Now the whole city was golden, tipped with rose and orange. ”

“ To this I answer, a little Season will produce Mourning enough in you, when you shall see your Angelical Motions like Lightning, cast down with Confusion of Fear from their former Perfection of imaginary Glory, rational Dreams and Visions, Revelations, Inspirations, Experiences, or Voices proceeding from an incomprehensible Spirit. ”

“ Driven on by the mad imaginings of a heart hovering between life and death, we fancy that the visible frame of things is replete with oracles. Or is it true; and do air and earth, divined by the sorrow-tutored spirit, possess true auguries? ”

“ Lived in wonder at the darkness;
Long reflected, well considered,
Why this miracle in heaven,
What this accident in nature
To the Moon upon her journey;
Why the Sun no more is shining,
Why has disappeared the moonlight. ”

“ But in those skyey spaces what dread change!
⁠Thus have we seen the mortal turn immortal;
⁠So doth the day's soul die, as through death's portal
The soul of man takes up its heavenward range.
⁠A million orbs endue
⁠The unfathomable blue—
Till, the long miracle of night withdrawn,
The world beholds once more the miracle of dawn. ”

“ And she wondered why my lips were chill,
⁠Why I was silent and kissed her so.
⁠A year has gone and the moon is bright,
⁠A gibbous moon, like a ghost of woe;
⁠I sit by a new-made grave to-night,
⁠And my heart is broken—it's strange, you kuow. ”

“ Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA.
If then true lovers have ever cross’d,
It stands as an edict in destiny. ”

“ The knell of dying Earth and of the Dawn;
The Dawn that will not break, that comes no more;
Never again; the beautiful, wild Dawn,
The young, the holy, radiant and wonderful,
First born of Heaven’s children, daughters of Light:
The Rose of God, the dream and youth of Day,
Whom Night hath slain and Darkness laid away,
Crying, “No more shall she awake the world! ”

“ From an evening cloud — was it a sign of grief?
And the bright day passed — is there much relief
That its dream dies not when its gleam is dead?
Great sky, thou art a prophet still!
And by thy shadows and by thy rays
We read the future if we will,
And all the fates of our future ways ”

“ DREAMS OF HEAVEN.
We colour Heaven with our own human thoughts,
Our vain aspirings, fond remembrances;
Our passionate love, that seems unto itself
An Immortality.
Dream'st thou of Heaven?—what dreams are thine? ”

“ A truth in what they say,
That angel-forms we cannot see
Go with us on our way;
Then surely she is with me here,
I dimly feel her spirit near—
The morning-mists grow thin and clear,
And Death brings in the Day. ”

“ Certainly the Gods come in dream. But who can say? See, beloved, how the night, mother of men, brings us her dark reposes lulling all things to sleep. There is no moon, but strange spirits as white as moonbeams moving among the trees. ”

“ To-day the spring sun rests upon the world like the eye of a mother, and shines warm upon every heart, the wicked as well as the good. Yes, thou Eternal One, we here now give our hands and our hearts to thy whole creation, and no longer hate anything which thou hast made.” We were overpowered, and we embraced with tears, and no words, in the first darkening of the night. ”

“ In waking dreams we pass the day,
And dreams the hours of darkness sway,
(Day-dreams or night-dreams—who can guess
Whether their truth is more or less?)
Perchance even Death is but a dream,
And fleshless skulls with visions teem.
The Gods we pray to and adore
Are shadows of our dreams—no more ”

“ Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently
Scatter'd along the eternal vault; and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and sooths the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch
Of sorrow and of love. ”

“ Life was the poise of infinity, and I knew of no horizon, for I could look down upon the dawn. It came two weeks ago Sunday in my heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and why white lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or a cage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and the sea tonight has lost its sorrow. ”