AWE.
Reading edition
Stand in awe and sin not; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.—Psalm iv. 4.
Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.—Psalm cxix. 161.
’T is dreadful! How reverend is the place of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft the arched and pond’rous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immoveable! Looking tranquillity; it strikes an awe And terror to my aching sight. The tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. Congreve.
So in the faces of all these there grew, As by one impulse, a dark, freezing awe, Which, with a fearful fascination, drew All eyes towards the altar; damp and raw The air grew suddenly, and no man knew Whether perchance his silent neighbour saw The dreadful thing, which all were sure would rise To scare the strained lids wider from their eyes. The incense trembled as it upward sent Its slow, uncertain thread of wandering blue, As ’twere the only living element In all the church, so deeply the stillness grew; It seemed one might have heard it, as it went, Give out an audible rustle, curling through The midnight silence of the awe-struck air, More hushed than death, though no such life was there. Jas. R. Lowell.
When on Sinai’s top I see God descend in majesty, To proclaim His holy law, All my spirit sinks with awe. J. Montgomery.
With sacred awe pronounce His name, Whom words nor thoughts can reach. Needham.