These Are the Remains
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: These Are the Remains
Scripture Reference:
- John 5 (further images / scripture text)
Description: Two men regard a pile of bones, skulls and a complete skeleton located in front of a wall. A large tree in full leaf grows to the left of the bones. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712), whose initials are at the lower right, was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem and for the poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant scripture text is John 5:28-29.
Poem:
Whatever he were in life, Arm, or Rich,
Death equalizes all.
Oh dry skeleton, that previously might have been,
Perhaps the dwelling of a wicked vain Spirit!
Where is the youth and pleasure, from the earth-minded life,
And all the vanity, committed in your body?
It has all disappeared, like the vapor of Smoke;
The body ghastly, and the spirit perhaps a phantom!
Just as the bloom and fragrance of beautiful flowers fall to the earth,
In the morning graceful, and at night nothing of worth.
Oh dismal remains, of the worm whose evil heart,
Has only burrowed miserably in the earth of sins!
But if thou worldly vessel, hast borne a nobler treasure,
Then the spiritual gold is released from the prison,
In which it grew and took its shape and being,
Until the Lord came to separate the fine from the coarse.
It’s to be rejoiced, to think of with joy:
Where is the woe and alas! of the cross-road and suffering?
Perished like a cloud, that disappears before the Sun,
So that the Eternal light shines upon the bare Spirit,
Oh important division, on which much depends!
How necessary is it that thou dost consider this prudently!
At the very end, when the being of this time,
On the Great Separation-day, is separated through the fire of Judgment,
Then thou the Dead shalt rise again from the graves,
To hear thine Sentence from the highest Judge,
And to join the rank, station, and state,
Of eternity, in Good, or in Evil.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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