I found this too, which I must have read years ago, but had forgotten. Read this and tell me the hairs on your neck don't stand on end. I dare you... Comes from the ANG*L site:
We can become aware that our life is "marvelously guided by good powers," as Dietrich Bonhoeffer experienced in a Nazi prison. Christian tradition speaks of these guiding powers as Guardian Angels and celebrates them on this special feast.
The first two stanzas of Rainer Maria Rilke's Second Duino Elegy counteract the saccharine sweet images which we all too often see of Guardian Angels.
Every angel is terrible.
Knowing this, I invoke thee,
O Deadly Birds of the Soul.
Gone are the days of Tobias,
when shining Raphael,
awful majesty disguised,
stood at a door, twin
to the youth who gazed
out, curious, upon him.
Should such an archangel
now descend a single step
from behind the stars,
our hearts would rise and
rage until they burst!
Who art thou?Primordial Perfection!
First darlings of Creation:
mountain summits crimson
in the dawn of genesis -
pollen of Godhead in
resplendent blossom,
essence of light...
halls, stairs, thrones,
places of pure being,
shields shaped of ecstasy,
swirling storms of rapture -
all suddenly ceasing...
mirrors!...commanding all
the scattered sweetness
into themselves again.(translated by Robert Hunter)
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