O let my joys have some abiding!
John Fletcher
[457]. Before Sleeping.
I have pieced this rhyme together from well-known versions and fragments. But the Angels?—
"And after that, I sawe iiij Angels stande on the iiij corners of the erth holdynge the foure wyndes of the erth, that the wyndes shuld not blowe on the erth, nether on the see, nether on eny tree."
The Revelation of S. John the Divine (1539).
"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands."
The Same (1611).
Of these Angels, having their fitting place among the hierarchies—Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels—no names are given. But Michael and Gabriel are archangels named in the Bible, and in the Apocrypha and elsewhere, Raphael, Zadkiel, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel. These too; steadfast or fallen: Samael, Semalion, Abdiel and gigantic Sandalphon, Rahab, Prince of the Sea; Ridia, Prince of the Rain; Yurkemi, Prince of the Hail; Af of Anger; Abaddona of Destruction; Lailah of Night. And in Paradise Lost:
Now had night measured with her shadowy cone