quote · Legacy record
The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; Or how the Royal Bard did groaning lie, Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; Or Job’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry; Or wrapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not, on earth, whereon to lay His head; How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he who, lone in Patmos banished, Saw, in the sun, a mighty angel stand; And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounced by Heaven’s command.
The priest-like father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek’s ungracious progeny; Or how the Royal Bard did groaning lie, Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire; Or Job’s pathetic plaint and wailing cry; Or wrapt Isaiah’s wild seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; How He who bore in Heaven the second name, Had not, on earth, whereon to lay His head; How His first followers and servants sped; The precepts sage they wrote to many a land: How he who, lone in Patmos banished, Saw, in the sun, a mighty angel stand; And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounced by Heaven’s command.
Approximate author period: c. 1777 AD · early modern
Meaning not yet available
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Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Robert Burns
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1777 AD · early modern
author lifetime midpoint (1759–1796)
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- A Cyclopædia of Sacred Poetical Quotations (catalogued1888) (1888 AD)
Page 62 · printed citation: Burns · subject: THE BIBLE
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