When justice streams from heaven, will it burn
or drown the world as in a second flood?
Will we have time to run for cover first?
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,

whose truth shall spring up from the tired ground,
obliterating what we thought was safe.
Was it on rock or sand we built the house?
He comes, he comes, the reckoner of days.

For he has heard the wailing of the poor—
Weep then, you rich, at your impending doom.
He comes to give us each our sure reward,
and how can earth not quake when heaven stoops?

Yet all these things will pass and silence fall,
and every knee shall bend before his might,
but ere he judges, God will stoop still more
to mourn the passing of each blameless light.

Unshroud the dead; let him see every face,
and tremble, heaven, as he sees who died.
Roll back the stones, disturbing every grave,
and let him see their hands, their feet, their sides.

O angels, turn your faces; do not look.
O six-winged seraphs, hide your flaming eyes.
Earth would dissolve in fire if it could,
not to be there when its creator cries.

By Józef Chełmoński – http://www.pinakoteka.zascianek.pl, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=292402