The Shade: Until It Cooled Off
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Shade: Until It Cooled Off
Scripture Reference:
- Psalms 17 (further images / scripture text)
- Psalms 63 (further images / scripture text)
Description: Two travelers rest in the shade of a mountain in order to escape the heat of the sun. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649–1712) was responsible for drawing this emblem and composed the poem that accompanies it. The etching was executed by Jan Luiken or his son Casper Luiken (1672–1708), who had used this image in an earlier work, which may be found in the Digital Image Archive under the call number 1699Weig. The attendant scriptures are Psalm 17:8 and Psalm 63:7.
Motto: Meanwhile, One waits for salvation.
Poem:
Like the shade of a Cliff,
On a Summer-day, in hot lands;
So lovely is the Shade of God,
While the World’s sun-rays burn.
O Worthy Mountain of the highest good,
The shade, that thou wilt be giving,
Cools off the Pilgrim of the soul,
When passing through this hot life.
Passers through the world’s kingdom,
Tired and toiling in the heat,
Take here a chosen retreat,
And sit down in this shade.
Here, Life creates a cool breeze,
In soul-refreshing breathing,
So beautifully escaped and fled,
From those very hot Sun-rays.
Sit here, till the evening falls,
The Evening of the tired life,
Then thou shalt through the Valley of Departure,
Take the road home.
And having come through the land,
Of the world’s intemperateness,
Thou shalt find thyself in a condition,
Where thy pleasure shall be content
For heat won’t be there anymore,
Nor vexation from raw cold,
A friendlier sunshine,
Will stay eternally temperate.
A sunshine, whose sweet power,
So lovely, and so superb
Shall in all Eternity let no night come
Through the setting of the sun.
A Sunshine, whose friendly light,
So soft and pleasing in caressing,
Is the glow from God’s face,
Far from sad or displeasing.
O Jesus! infinite Sun!
Whose beams never disappeared,
Whose rise began ever and ever,
Thou hast shone since eternity;
From God, the Paternal fire,
A Spring, an Artery, that the hovering
Of the Holy Spirit, in God’s nature,
Has emitted since eternity.
So has the rising of this Sun,
By God never had a beginning,
Its rise is only over us,
We, who come into its radiance.
It appears before the eye of the blessed,
As they pass from the world’s darkness,
From the Earth into Heaven,
Never shall they miss its shining.
Weary people, in the hot day
Of the present temporal life,
While it can happen to thee
Come into the Shade God has given thee;
So that thy life does not die,
And finally after having cooled off,
Inherit the rising of this Sun
That will not burn, but heal.
O Pleasant shade of God,
We hide behind thy Cliff.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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