Poem by Thomas Traherne

The Preparative

My body being dead, my limbs unknown;
Before I skill'd to prize
Those living stars, mine eyes;
Before my tongue or cheeks were to me shewn,
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 cloth'd with skin.

Then was my Soul my only all to me,
A living endless eye,
Scarce bounded with 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, all sense,
A naked, simple, pure intelligence.

I then no thirst nor hunger did perceive;
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.

For sight inherits beauty; hearing, sounds;
The nostril, sweet perfumes,
All tastes have hidden rooms
Within the tongue; the feeling feeling wounds
With pleasure and delight: but I
Forgot the rest, and was all sight or eye,
Unbody'd and devoid of care,
Just as in heav'n the holy angels are:
For simple sense
Is lord of all created excellence.

Being thus prepar'd for all felicity;
Not prepossess'd with dross,
Nor basely glued to gross
And dull materials that might ruin me,
Not fetter'd by an iron fate,
With vain affections in my earthy state,
To anything that might seduce
My sense, or else bereave it of its use;
I was as free
As if there were nor sin nor misery.

Pure empty powers that did nothing loathe,
Did, like the fairest glass
Or spotless polish'd brass,
Themselves soon in their object's image clothe:
Divine impressions, when they came,
Did quickly enter and my soul inflame.
'Tis not the object, but the light,
That maketh heav'n: 'tis a truer sight.
Felicity
Appears to none but them that purely see.

A disentangled and a naked sense,
A mind that's unpossess'd,
A disengaged breast,
An empty and a quick intelligence
Acquainted with the golden mean,
An even spirit, pure, and serene,
Is that where beauty, excellence
And pleasure keep their court of residence.
My soul retire,
Get free, and so thou shalt even all admire.

1. A Life of Sabbaths Here Beneath
2. Joyful Sense and Purity
3. Shadows in the Water
4. In Making Bodies Love Could Not Express
5. Innocence

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