User:Joe Spencer/Opening the Book of Mormon: 1 Nephi 20:1

  Opening the Book of Mormon: 1 Nephi 20:1
  
  Giving way to what flows into death,
  waters, these from the realms of beyond,
  trickle down (into which, holding breath,
  One shall plunge, wearing charity’s bond).
  
  Here a house to be heard has been reared
  that in silence draws out of the stream
  its great strength, and a home quite endeared
  to the angels it is: here they dream.
  
  Yet by hands—-those of men-—was it built,
  not by will of the Father nor skill
  of His sons; and for this, its sole guilt,
  is its name “The Usurper,” “Man’s Will.”
  
  And the angels, they come here to dream
  and to see, as precursors to One
  who shall die in this house by the stream,
  yes, who born there shall be, a-—God’s-—son.
  
  And this wrestle of birth—-of re-birth—-
  in this house points to, marks the un-truth,
  the unrighteousness real, the sad worth
  of the shack, shows it only a booth.
  
  But a booth that stays up, that remains
  and precisely by strife: in that One
  there shall issue a call that maintains
  the poor house (stronger Rock, there is none).
  
  O most humble abode, silent site
  now by other name called, not on sand
  but on Rock: “House Prevailing By Right.”
  Cross you now.  On towards Promised Land.

• The scripture that inspired this poem: 1 Ne 20:1.
• Other scriptures engaged in this poem: Gen 32:22, Matt 3:13, D&C 88:125, Gen 32:24, Gen 32:27, Matt 3:17, Matt 7:24, Gen 32:28, Matt 7:26.