MAN.
In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.
Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.—Genesis, v. 1, 2.
Behold, even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?—Job, xxv. 5, 6.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.
What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him.
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.—Psalm viii. 3, 4, 5.
Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man, then, understand his own way?—Proverbs, xx. 24.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.—Matthew, iv. 4.
O, what is man, great Maker of mankind!
That Thou to him so great respect dost bear;
That Thou adornest him with so bright a mind,
Mak’st him a king, and even an angel’s peer?
O, what a lively life, what heavenly power,
What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire,
How great, how plentiful, how rich a dower
Dost Thou within the dying flesh inspire!
Thou leav’st Thy print in other works of Thine,
But Thy whole image Thou in man hast writ;
There cannot be a creature more divine,
Except, like Thee, it should be infinite.
But it exceeds man’s thoughts, to think how high
God hath raised man, since God a man became;
The angels do admire this mystery,
And are astonished when they view the same:
Nor hath He given these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the body’s life depend;
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye;
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.
Sir John Davies.
So fair is man, that death (a parting blast,)
Blasts his fair flower, and makes him earth at last;
So strong is man, that with a gasping breath
He totters, and bequeaths his strength to death;
So wise is man, that if with death he strive,
His wisdom cannot teach him how to live;
So rich is man, that (all his debts being paid,)
His wealth’s the winding-sheet wherein he’s laid;
So young is man, that (broke with care and sorrow,)
He’s old enough to-day to die to-morrow.
Francis Quarles.
Man’s not a lawful steersman of his days,
His bootless wish nor hastens, nor delays;
We are God’s hired workmen, He discharges
Some late at night, and (when He list) enlarges
Others at noon, and in the morning some:
None may relieve himself, till He bid, Come.
Francis Quarles.
Let us make man in our own image, man
In our similitudes, and let them rule
Over the fish and fowl of both sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
This said, He formed thee Adam, thee, O man!
Dust of the ground; and in thy nostrils breathed
The breath of life: in His own image, He
Created thee—in the image of God
Express.
Milton.
When by His Word God had accomplished all,
Man to create He did a council call:
Employed His hand to give the dust He took
A graceful figure and majestic look;
With His own breath conveyed into his breast
Life and a soul fit to command the rest.
Waller.
Alas! that man
Must prove the direst enemy of man—
His boasted reason wielded to contrive
Dark systems of despair—his vaunted skill,
To forge the fetters which enthral the soul.
A. Alexander.
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt!
Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine;
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god! I tremble at myself,
And in myself am lost. At home a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
Oh! what miracle to man to man!
Young.
Say, why was man so eminently rais’d
Amid the vast creation; why ordain’d
Through life and death to dart his piercing eye,
With thoughts beyond the limits of his frame;
But that the Omnipotent might send him forth
In sight of mortal and immortal powers,
As on a boundless theatre, to run
The great career of justice; to exalt
His generous aim to all diviner deeds;
To chase each partial purpose from his breast;
And through the mists of passion and of sense,
And through the tossing tide of chance and pain,
To hold his course unfaltering; while the voice
Of truth and virtue, up the steep ascent
Of nature, calls him to his high reward—
The applauding smile of Heaven?
Akenside.
Traveller, as roaming over vales and steeps,
Thou hast, perchance, beheld in foliage fair
A willow bending o’er a brook—it weeps,
Leaf after leaf, into the stream, till bare
Are the best boughs, the lovliest and the brightest,
Oh! sigh, for well thou may’st, yet as thou sighest,
Think not ’tis o’er imaginary woe;
I tell thee, traveller, such is mortal man,
And so he hangs o’er fancied bliss, and so,
While life is verging to its shortest span,
Drop one by one his dearest joys away,
Till hope is but the ghost of something fair,
Till joy is mockery, till life is care,
Till he himself is unreflecting clay.
Henry Neele.
Whate’er of earth is formed, to earth returns
Dissolved: the various objects we behold—
Plants, animals, this whole material mass—
Are ever changing, ever new. The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,
Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail:
Hence the great distance ’twixt the beasts that perish,
And God’s bright image, man’s immortal race.
Somerville.
Prostration vile, an alienate from God
Man is, and shall his fallen nature rise,
Her height regain, and fill ethereal thrones?
Many a cloud of evil shall be burst,
Ere that day come, severe and dread the strife
Of sullied nature with the soul of man,
Whate’er his climate, character, or creed,
Temptation, like a spirit, tracks his path.
R. Montgomery.
And what is man? In outward guise
Let him be prince, or peer, or slave,
Or poor and weak, or great and wise—
A mortal, tending to the grave:
Such are all men—from earth we came,
Earth doth her own poor dust reclaim.
H. H. Weld.
But, of Thy works, through sea and land,
Or the wide fields of ether wending,
In man Thy noblest thoughts are blending;
Man is the glory of thy hand;—
Man modelled in a form of grace,
Where every beauty has its place;
A gentleness and glory sharing
His spirit, where we may behold
A higher aim, a nobler daring:
’Tis Thine immortal mould.
Jacob Bellamy.
When the Almighty Fiat, from the gloom
Of chaos drawn to light, had now arranged
The jarring seeds, the last, the most sublime
Of all His works, was Man called forth; to him
The Sovereign Word gave empire o’er the whole.
Samuel Hayes.