Sunday, May 5, 2024

Spiritual Quote of the Day (John Milton, on the Archangel Raphael)

“At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise
He lights, and to his proper shape returns
A Seraph winged:  Six wings he wore, to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loits and thighs with downy gold
And colours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
Sky-tinctured grain.  Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled
The circuit wide.”—English poet John Milton (1608-1674), on the archangel Raphael dispatched to check on Eden, in Paradise Lost (1674)
 
The image accompanying this post, St. Raphael, was created by the Spanish Baroque painter Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1618-1682).

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