Upheaval

“ This has proved one of the very greatest problems of the revolution, because masses of the workers, densely ignorant in consequence of a thousand years of working class slavery and accustomed to forced labor, had hardly an inkling of what the social upheaval was all about. They thought that the revolution meant that they did not have to work any more, or at best, only at such odd times and in such haphazard fashion as they saw fit. ”

“ I said; “‘something that worries us for a little while, then passes.’ Perhaps the ‘worry,’ as you call it, has its uses. Volcanic upheavals are necessary to the making of a world. Without them the ground would remain rock-bound, unfitted for its purposes. ”

“ With gods in every grove and fountain, and on every mountain summit; with gods breathing in the winds and flashing in the lightning, or the ray of sun and star, heaving in the earthquake or the November storm in the Aegean, watching over every society of men congregated for any purpose, guarding the solitary hunter or traveller in the Alps or the Sahara, what is called miracle became as natural to the heathen as the rising of the sun. ”

“ For not like kingdoms of the world, Thy holy Church, O God!
Tho' earthquake shocks are threatening her,
And tempests are abroad,
Unshaken as eternal hills,
Immovable she stands,
A mountain that shall fill the earth,
A house not made by hands. Amen. ”

“ The works of art and of nature, the elaborations of centuries, together with many a stream and rock, coeval perhaps with the world itself, were in a single instant destroyed and overthrown.... Whirlwinds, tempests, the flames of volcanoes, and of burning edifices, rain, wind, and thunder, accompanied the movements of the earth: all the forces of nature were in activity, and it seemed as if all its laws were suspended, and the last hour of created things at hand. ”

“ Thou bidst Creation tremble and obey!
Then, rob'd in darkness and in clouds,
That solemn veil thy glory shrouds;
Chaos and night thy dark pavilion form;
Thy spirit on the whirlwind rides,
Impels the unresisting tides,
Glares in the lightning, rushes in the storm! ”

“ The Spirit saw 325 The vast frame of the renovated world Smile in the lap of Chaos, and the sense Of hope thro' her fine texture did suffuse Such varying glow, as summer evening casts On undulating clouds and deepening lakes. 330 Like the vague sighings of a wind at even, That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea And dies on the creation of its breath, And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits, Was the sweet stream of thought that with wild motion 335 Flowed o'er the Spirit's human sympathies. ”

“ There also the laws of power and harmony subdue and rule the elements, so that there are no harsh frosts, nor fierce heat, neither earthquake nor whelming flood; no storms, to vex the heavens, nor to desolate the earth; whose bloom is glad in the morning sun, and beautiful in the starlight. ”

“ Dark clouds may conceal, but cannot destroy it. Tempests may toss the sea—earthquakes convulse the globe—and storm-bolts shake the sky—it stands as firm as Heaven. Within its meek and twinkling rays, are Faith, Hope and Freedom—cherishing the one, indulging the other, and endeavoring to gain the last for our slavery smitten countrymen. ”

“ One continual perception of stability, or changeless revolution, weighed upon their hearts—their life depended on no casual alternation of cold and heat—of drought and shower; their gift-Gods were the risen River and the eternal Sun, and the types of these were forever consecrated in the lotus decoration of the temple and the wedge of the enduring Pyramid. ”

“ Thus, the sun, moon and stars and heavenly bodies denote kings, queens, rulers, and persons in great power; their increase of splendor denotes increase of prosperity; their darkening, setting, or falling denotes a reverse of fortune, or the entire ceasing of that power or kingdom to which they refer. Great earthquakes and the shaking of heaven and earth denote the commotion and overthrow of kingdoms ”

“ Let the elm by the road feel a shock to the core,
Lean forward, and totter at the will of the storm!
Let the heights of the rock roll the avalanche down,
Let the torrents rave hoarse, and in night's murky frown
Let old Chaos appear in its primitive form! ”

“ As beyond the storm clouds of Earth’s nearest material atmosphere the sun always shines glorious and with resplendent brightness, so beyond the horrors of war the desolation and ravagement of nations incident thereto, beyond the storms, earthquakes, and cataclysmic throes of nature, the Sun of Spiritual Hope and Love ever shines surpassing fair, and all the Angelic and Spiritual Hosts are ready to aid, strengthen, succor the spirits enshrouded in time and earth conditions. ”

“ And yet, what strange and sudden changes altering the affairs of men, changing the hearts of mortals, yea, revolutionizing their whole intellects, and overturning their very natures—more than the devastating earthquake or the destroying lava transforms the face of the everlasting earth—have not been wrought, and again well nigh forgotten within that little period. ”

“ I thought of the glorious spirits who have looked upon them and trodden their rugged sides—of the storms in which they veil their countenances, and the avalanches they hurl thundering to the valleys—of the voices of great deeds, which have echoed from their crags over the wide earth—and of the ages which have broken, like the waves of a mighty sea, upon their everlasting summits! ”

“ Fire after fire in Heaven's rich temple burning—
Fast shine they forth—my spirit friends, my guides,
Bright rulers of my being's inmost tides;
They shine—but faintly, through a quivering haze—
Oh! is the dimness mine which clouds those rays? ”

“ When the power of his blood rose in him, the dark aura streamed from him like a cloud pregnant with power, like thunder, and rose like a whirlwind that rises suddenly in the twilight and raises a great pliant column, swaying and leaning with power, clear between heaven and earth. ”

“ And these green-stretching fields, these peaceful hollows,
That hear the tempest, but take no alarm,
Has not their placid verdue sweetly taught me
The peace within when all without is storm?
And thou keen sun-flash, through the cloud-wreath bursting,
Silvering the sea, the sward, the rock, the foam,
What light within me has thy pure gleam kindled?
'Tis from the land of light that thou art come.
And of the time how blithely art thou telling,
When cloud and change and tempest shall take wing;
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Each beam of thine prophetic of the glory,
Creation's daybreak, earth's long-promised spring. ”

“ Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary Deep—a dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height, And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. ”

“ Peaceful valleys, green and flowery, sleeping in loveliness, have been unheaved, and piled in somber, jagged masses, against the sky, by the fingering of an earthquake; and gentle, loving, trusting hearts, over whose altars brooded the white-winged messengers of God's peace, have been as suddenly transformed by a manifestation of selfishness and injustice, into gloomy haunts of misanthropy. ”

“ As a severe storm in nature purifies the elements and the earth, reviving the plants, clarifying the air, causing the sun to shine more gloriously, so, too, do the storms which beset the soul and wring from it its groans and sighs, purify the spiritual man and place him nearer to the throne of his Maker. ”

“ CREATION.
"Let there be light!" and Chaos fled
Back to his midnight cell,
And light, the earliest gift of Heaven,
On cradled nature fell.
Earth from the encroaching waters rose,
Strong Ocean knew his place,
Bold rivers forced their unknown way,
Young streams began their race. ”

“ A sky of glorious and sublime beauty was spread out above this earth; a rainbow stood in the east, like the circle of eternity: a storm, with broken wings, passed thundering, as if weary, along by the lightning conductors, and away through the glowing gate of Eden in the west; the evening sun gazed after the storm with a brightness tender as if it shone through tears, resting its glance upon the great triumphal arch of Nature. ”

“ From rifts and rents in nature's worn disguise,
The sackcloth vesture that God's splendour drapes
Crumbles to ashes, and before our eyes
The earth takes fire with beauty and its shapes
Glow in apocalypse that gains the skies. ”

“ How they rally side by side, and wrestle with the wind—crashing down suddenly against the walls of the tomb, and scattering their leaves over us; then rallying again, and fighting the storm with human energy and persistence! ”

“ I am come into a part void of all light, which bellows like the sea in tempest when it is combated by warring winds. The hellish [311] storm, which never rests, leads the spirits with its sweep; whirling and smiting, it vexes them. When they arrive before the ruin, there the shrieks, the moanings, and the lamentation; there they blaspheme the divine power. ”

“ Europe, A.D. 500.
The World beheld them and adored—adored,
And fear’d, and sought to slay them; for
The battle-brood of gods is battle-born.
But they endured; nor in the thunder found
Harm, or the bolt of death.
And God look’d down and spake, and thro’ the Earth
The murmur ran, terranean like the shock
When central earthquakes jar, until the Deep
Foams tingling to the icèd poles ”

“ The chaotic mass remained in this primitive state, till God was pleased to assimilate, assort, and arrange the materials,—out of which he built up, in the space of six days, the whole of creation.25 The Spirit of God, represented us sitting upon the vast abyss, 46 like a bird, while either in the act of incubation or fostering its young, moved or brooded upon the face of the waters, communicating, by his vital energy, life and motion to the unformed chaos. ”

“ Through its din are heard loud, deep, solemn booms that seem like the voice of some higher Power speaking out of the depths of the universe. Suddenly the storm subsides, the earth comes speedily to rest, and all is over. ”

“ When the wind whistled, soughed, moaned and bellowed round the house, like a giant soul in pain, she remained as it were looking up at the wind, let her soul swell softly in unison with its dirges, like something that surrenders itself, small and weak but peaceful, to a mighty force. ”

“ Peace! soon the light-streams shall thine eyelids lave,
And wash this barren blindness from thy soul,
Till these dark mystic vapours backward roll,
And leave all nature in thy sight outspread.
We are upon the summit now. Ho! boy,
Place me where I shall see the sun arise,
When its great glory lightens up ”

“ The conflagration of near two hundred houses illumined the earth, the skirts of the clouds, and the waves of the Sound with a union of gloom and grandeur at once inexpressibly awful and magnificent. The sky speedily was hung with the deepest darkness Wherever the clouds were not tinged by the melancholy luster of the flames. ”

“ I speak of earth and water and air that shall cleave together as component parts of chaos, of heavens that shall stretch out ‘like a curtain,’ of hordes that shall put on the ‘armor of light.’ No time to call on the gods of men in my surprise. ”

“ The storm, that spreads ruin and devastation in its path, is no less a proof of a wise and overruling Providence than the gentler phenomena of nature, which, with such constant and unvarying regularity, refresh and bless the earth. ”

“ The fierce wind that roared among the savage peaks, the shock that made the mountains reel, and the flashing flames that lighted up the wild landscape, were all phenomena of one kind, and at once expressed God's lordship over all destructive agencies of nature, and symbolised the more vehement and disturbing forms of energy, used by Him for the furtherance of His purposes in the field of history or of revelation. ”

“ In Earth’s expanding range,
The height and depth, the rise and fall,
The first and last of Change.
“Kings pale and perish, dogmas die,
The world goes slowly on
To greet an all-unclouded sky,
To kiss a purer dawn. ”

“ The storm rages over the earth, rends the veil, bursts the false temple. The world groans; and the Lord himself, touched even in his unapproachable divinity, extends his arms to his beloved Son to receive him to his heart. ”

“ As in the Cave of the Winds the most restless spirit surely might find peace, so in the eternal changefulness of the forest under the touch of forces fierce or serene we find the soul of quiet because the powers at work are beyond our control, control us utterly, hold us in an immense and soothing grasp where thought and energy are fused and contend no more. ”

“ Yet there is strength in all this calm. "He setteth fast the mountains," is the emblem of Divine omnipotence, "being girded with power." But these mountains are not always set fast. The "everlasting hills do bow." ”

“ Gods were in the wind and rain, in the flood and flame, in the roar of the thunder and the echo of the forest gorge, in the harvest that sustained and the disease that destroyed—in everything that helped or hurt the sons of men. ”

“ Storm and cloud again and again darken the light of nature, whether that light be physical or moral; and under these storms and clouds reason is swayed from her highest and best conclusions; and the contradictions without, are faithfully reflected within the soul. ”

“ Thus the slight breeze, scarcely stirring the drowsy flowery the monotonous cadences of the stony brook, and the gliding of feathery flecks of cloud across the blue, create a peace far deeper than absolute stillness, and suggest an infinite life in which activity and repose are one. ”

“ The dark and thickening cloud, the flashes of the lightning, the roaring of thunder, the dashing of the rain and the wild sweep of the winds, sometimes crushing forests in their pathway, are all manifestations of an unseen power. ”