Give us a break
A depiction of Muhammad receiving his first revelation from the angel Gabriel. From the manuscript Jami' al-tawarikh by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, 1307, Ilkhanate period.
“Spare us all word of the weapons, their force and range,
The long numbers that rocket the mind;
Our slow, unreckoning hearts will be left behind,
Unable to fear what is too strange.’’
- From “Advice to a Prophet,’’ by Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), famed and mostly New England-based poet
Here’s the whole poem: