[A] certain German-speaking Trappist abbey in the last century was smothered with frescoes of the most alarming kind. Symbols of death and dissolution confronted the eye at every turn, and in the refectory the beckoning torso of a painted skeleton, equipped with an hour glass and a scythe, leant, with the terrifying archness of a forgotten guest, across the coping of a wall on which were inscribed the words: Tonight, maybe?
–Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said: ‘Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.’ And he was afraid, and said: ‘How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’
— Genesis 28:16-17
WILLIAM BLAKE, c. 1805
Thank you so much for posting Blake's "Jacob's Ladder": I suspect I'm not the only reader who hasn't seen it before! Providentially, just before seeing this, I had finished reading the passage about Jacob's ladder in the Book of Genesis ("And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it"), drawn there by the Lord Jesus' apparent comparison of Himself to the ladder in the Gospel of St. John ("Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man").
Yes, stirring, the passage! Glad you responded to it and Happy New Year.