Poem by Thomas Traherne

An Hymn upon St. Bartholomew's Day

What powerful Spirit lives within!  
 What active Angel doth inhabit here!  
 What heavenly light inspires my skin,  
Which doth so like a Deity appear!  
A living Temple of all ages, I      
     Within me see  
   A Temple of Eternity!  
     All Kingdoms I descry  
       In me.  
 
   An inward Omnipresence here
Mysteriously like His within me stands,  
 Whose knowledge is a Sacred Sphere  
That in itself at once includes all lands.  
There is some Angel that within me can  
     Both talk and move,
   And walk and fly and see and love,  
     A man on earth, a man  
       Above.  
 
   Dull walls of clay my Spirit leaves,  
And in a foreign Kingdom doth appear,  
 This great Apostle it receives,  
Admires His works and sees them, standing here,  
Within myself from East to West I move  
     As if I were  
   At once a Cherubim and Sphere,
     Or was at once above  
       And here.  
 
   The Soul’s a messenger whereby  
Within our inward Temple we may be  
 Even like the very Deity
In all the parts of His Eternity.  
O live within and leave unwieldy dross!  
     Flesh is but clay!  
   O fly my Soul and haste away  
     To Jesus’ Throne or Cross!
       Obey!

1. Shadows in the Water
2. The Recovery
3. Dumbness
4. The Apostasy
5. A Life of Sabbaths Here Beneath

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