Poem by Thomas Traherne

The Preparative

My Body being Dead, my Limbs unknown;
Before I skilled [sic] to prize
Those living Stars mine Eyes,
Before my Tongue or Cheeks were to me shown,
Before I knew my Hands were mine,
Or that my Sinews did my Members join,
When neither Nostril, Foot, nor Ear,
As yet was seen, or felt, or did appear;
I was within
A House I knew not, newly clothed with Skin.
Then was my Soul my only All to me,
A Living Endless Eye,
Far wider than the Sky
Whose Power, whose Act, whose Essence was to see.
I was an Inward Sphere of Light,
Or an Interminable Orb of Sight,
An Endless and a Living Day,
A vital Sun that round about did ray
All Life and Sense,
A Naked Simple Pure Intelligence.
I then no Thirst nor Hunger did conceive,
No dull Necessity,
No Want was Known to me;
Without Disturbance then I did receive
The fair Ideas of all Things,
And had the Honey even without the Stings.
A Meditating Inward Eye
Gazing at Quiet did within me lie,
And every Thing
Delighted me that was their Heavenly King. 

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

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