
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Poems from the Dobell Folio
- Poems of Felicity
- Dedication
- The Author to the Critical Peruser
- The Publisher to the Reader
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- An Infant-Ey
- The Return
- The Præparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- News
- Felicity
- Adam's Fall
- The World
- The Apostacy (‘Blisse’, stanzas 5 & 6)
- Solitude
- Poverty
- Dissatisfaction
- The Bible
- Christendom
- On Christmas-Day
- Bells. I
- Bells. II
- Churches. I
- Churches. II
- Misapprehension
- The Improvment
- The Odour
- Admiration
- The Approach
- Nature
- Eas
- Dumness
- My Spirit
- Silence
- Right Apprehension
- Right Apprehension. II (‘The Apprehension’)
- Fulness
- Speed
- The Choice (‘The Designe’)
- The Person
- The Image
- The Estate
- The Evidence
- The Enquiry
- Shadows in the Water
- On Leaping over the Moon
- ‘To the same purpos’
- Sight
- Walking
- The Dialogue
- Dreams
- The Inference. I
- The Inference. II
- The City
- Insatiableness. I
- Insatiableness. II
- Consummation
- Hosanna
- The Review. I
- The Review. II
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
The Improvment
from Poems of Felicity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Poems from the Dobell Folio
- Poems of Felicity
- Dedication
- The Author to the Critical Peruser
- The Publisher to the Reader
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- An Infant-Ey
- The Return
- The Præparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- News
- Felicity
- Adam's Fall
- The World
- The Apostacy (‘Blisse’, stanzas 5 & 6)
- Solitude
- Poverty
- Dissatisfaction
- The Bible
- Christendom
- On Christmas-Day
- Bells. I
- Bells. II
- Churches. I
- Churches. II
- Misapprehension
- The Improvment
- The Odour
- Admiration
- The Approach
- Nature
- Eas
- Dumness
- My Spirit
- Silence
- Right Apprehension
- Right Apprehension. II (‘The Apprehension’)
- Fulness
- Speed
- The Choice (‘The Designe’)
- The Person
- The Image
- The Estate
- The Evidence
- The Enquiry
- Shadows in the Water
- On Leaping over the Moon
- ‘To the same purpos’
- Sight
- Walking
- The Dialogue
- Dreams
- The Inference. I
- The Inference. II
- The City
- Insatiableness. I
- Insatiableness. II
- Consummation
- Hosanna
- The Review. I
- The Review. II
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
Summary
ʿTis more to recollect than make; the one
Is but an Accident without the other:
We cannot think the World to be the Throne
Of God, unless his Wisdom shine as Brother
Unto his Power, in the Fabrick, so
That we the one may in the other know.
His Goodness also must in both appear,
And All the Children of his Lov be found,
In the Creation of the Starry Sphere,
And in the framing of the fruitful Ground,
Before we can that Happiness descry
Which is the Daughter of the Deity.
His Wisdom's seen in ord'ring this Great House;
His Power shines in governing the Sun;
His Goodness doth exceeding Marvellous
Appear in ev'ry Thing His Hand hath don:
And all his Works, in their Variety,
United or asunder, pleas the Ey.
But neither Goodness, Wisdom, Power, nor Lov,
Nor Happiness its self, in things could be,
Did they not all in one fair Order mov,
And jointly by their Service end in Me.
Had He not made an Ey to be the Sphere
Of all these Things, How could their Use appear?
His Wisdom, Goodness, Power, as they unite
All Things in One, that they may be the Treasures
Of one Enjoyer, reach the utmost Hight
They can attain; and are then Our Pleasures,
When all the Univers combines in One
T' exalt a Creature, as if that alone.
To make the Product of far distant Seas
Meet in a point, be present to mine Ey
In Virtu, not in Bulk; one Man to pleas
With His wise Conduct of the Hevens high;
From East, and West, and North, and South to bring
The useful Influence of ev'ry Thing;
Is far more Great than to create them where
They now do stand; His Wisdom more approv'd,
So do His Might and Goodness more appear,
In recollecting All that should be lov'd,
That All might be a Gift to ev'ry One,
Than in the sev'ral Parts of His wide Throne.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Works of Thomas Traherne VIPoems from the 'Dobell Folio', Poems of Felicity, The Ceremonial Law, Poems from the 'Early Notebook', pp. 137 - 139Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014