
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Poems from the Dobell Folio
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- The Preparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- The Improvment
- The Approach
- Dumnesse
- Silence
- My Spirit
- The Apprehension (‘Right Apprehension. II’)
- Fullnesse
- Nature
- Ease
- Speed
- The Designe (‘The Choice’)
- The Person
- The Estate
- The Enquirie
- The Circulation
- Amendment
- The Demonstration
- The Anticipation
- The Recovery
- Another
- Love
- Thoughts. I
- Blisse (Stanzas 5 & 6, ‘The Apostacy’)
- Thoughts. II
- ‘Ye hidden Nectars’
- Thoughts. III
- Desire
- ‘In thy Presence’ (Thoughts. IV)
- Goodnesse
- Poems of Felicity
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
My Spirit
from Poems from the Dobell Folio
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
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- The Preparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- The Improvment
- The Approach
- Dumnesse
- Silence
- My Spirit
- The Apprehension (‘Right Apprehension. II’)
- Fullnesse
- Nature
- Ease
- Speed
- The Designe (‘The Choice’)
- The Person
- The Estate
- The Enquirie
- The Circulation
- Amendment
- The Demonstration
- The Anticipation
- The Recovery
- Another
- Love
- Thoughts. I
- Blisse (Stanzas 5 & 6, ‘The Apostacy’)
- Thoughts. II
- ‘Ye hidden Nectars’
- Thoughts. III
- Desire
- ‘In thy Presence’ (Thoughts. IV)
- Goodnesse
- Poems of Felicity
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
Summary
1
My Naked Simple Life was I.
That Act so Strongly Shind
Upon the Earth, the Sea, the Skie,
It was the Substance of My Mind.
The Sence it self was I.
I felt no Dross nor Matter in my Soul,
No Brims nor Borders, such as in a Bowl
We see, My Essence was Capacitie.
That felt all Things,
The Thought that Springs
Therfrom's it self. It hath no other Wings
To Spread abroad, nor Eys to see,
Nor Hands Distinct to feel,
Nor Knees to Kneel:
But being Simple like the Deitie
In its own Centre is a Sphere
Not shut up here, but evry where.
2
It Acts not from a Centre to
Its Object as remote,
But present is, when it doth view,
Being with the Being it doth note.
Whatever it doth do,
It doth not by another Engine work,
But by it self; which in the Act doth lurk.
Its Essence is Transformd into a true
And perfect Act.
And so Exact
Hath God appeard in this Mysterious Fact,
That tis all Ey, all Act, all Sight,
And what it pleas can be,
Not only see,
Or do; for tis more Voluble then Light:
Which can put on ten thousand Forms,
Being clothd with what it self adorns.
3
This made me present evermore
With whatso ere I saw.
An Object, if it were before
My Ey, was by Dame Natures Law,
Within my Soul. Her Store
Was all at once within me; all her Treasures
Were my Immediat and Internal Pleasures,
Substantial Joys, which did inform my Mind.
With all she wrought,
My Soul was fraught,
And evry Object in my Heart a Thought
Begot, or was; I could not tell,
Whether the Things did there
Themselvs appear,
Which in my Spirit truly seemd to dwell;
Or whether my conforming Mind
Were not even all that therin shind.
- 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. 26 - 30Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014