The Fall of the Rebel Angels

The Fall of the Rebel Angels (ca. 1666),
Luca Giordano, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna, Austria

In this second installment of my "virtual chapbook," I sing of the downfall of the Luciferians. Never realizing my plan to pen my own epic poem in the vein of Joost van den Vondel's Lucifer (1654), I neatly summarized the War in Heaven and its repercussions in Campania in three short stanzas.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Angelic trumpets sound
And the rebels stormed the gate.
The Morningstar cast down,
Diadem knocked from his pate.

A piece of Heaven fell with him,
Plunging into the Siren’s Bay.
Avernus retched its foul air,
Vesuvius convulsed and quaked.

Weeping over the desolation,
Christ’s tears fecundate.
The land of bells lies forever
Between the realms of love and hate.