Thomas Traherne: Verses about Nature

His Power bounded, greater is in might,
Than if let loose, 'twere wholly infinite.
He could have made an endless sea by this,
But then it had not been a sea of bliss.
Did waters from the centre to the skies
Ascend, 'twould drown whatever else we prize.
The ocean bounded in a finite shore,
Is better far because it is no more.
No use nor glory would in that be seen,
His power made it endless in esteem.
Had not the Sun been bounded in its sphere,
Did all the world in one fair flame appear,
And were that flame a real Infinite
'Twould yield no profit, splendor, nor delight.
Its corps confined, and beams extended be
Effects of Wisdom in the Deity.
One star made infinite would all exclude,
An earth made infinite could ne'er be viewed:
But one being fashioned for the other's sake,
He, bounding all, did all most useful make
And which is best, in profit and delight
Tho' not in bulk, they all are infinite.

For all the mysteries, engines, instruments, wherewith the world is filled, which we are able to frame and use to thy glory.

For all the trades, variety of operations, cities, temples, streets, bridges, mariner's compass, admirable picture, sculpture, writing, printing, songs and music; wherewith the world is beautified and adorned.


Much more for the regent life,
And power of perception,
Which rules within.
That secret depth of fathomless consideration
That receives the information
Of all our senses,
That makes our centre equal to the heavens,
And comprehendeth in itself the magnitude of the world;
The involv'd mysteries
Of our common sense;
The inaccessible secret
Of perceptive fancy;
The repository and treasury
Of things that are past;
The presentation of things to come;
Thy name be glorified
For evermore.

....

O miracle
Of divine goodness!
O fire! O flame of zeal, and love, and joy!
Ev'n for our earthly bodies, hast thou created all things.
{ visible
All things { material
{ sensible
Animals,
Vegetables,
Minerals,< br>Bodies celestial,
Bodies terrestrial,
The four elements,
Volatile spirits,
Trees, herbs, and flowers,
The influences of heaven,
Clouds, vapors, wind,
Dew, rain, hail and snow,
Light and darkness, night and day,
The seasons of the year.
Springs, rivers, fountains, oceans,
Gold, silver, and precious stones.
Corn, wine, and oil,
The sun, moon, and stars,
Cities, nations, kingdoms.
And the bodies of men, the greatest treasures of all,
For each other.
What then, O Lord, hast thou intended for our
Souls, who givest to our bodies such glorious things!

To walk abroad is, not with eyes,
But thoughts, the fields to see and prize;
Else may the silent feet,
Like logs of wood,
Move up and down, and see no good
Nor joy nor glory meet.

Ev'n carts and wheels their place do change,
But cannot see, though very strange
The glory that is by;
Dead puppets may
Move in the bright and glorious day,
Yet not behold the sky.

And are not men than they more blind,
Who having eyes yet never find
The bliss in which they move;
Like statues dead
They up and down are carried
Yet never see nor love.

To walk is by a thought to go;
To move in spirit to and fro;
To mind the good we see;
To taste the sweet;
Observing all the things we meet
How choice and rich they be.

To note the beauty of the day,
And golden fields of corn survey;
Admire each pretty flow'r
With its sweet smell;
To praise their Maker, and to tell
The marks of his great pow'r.

To fly abroad like active bees,
Among the hedges and the trees,
To cull the dew that lies
On ev'ry blade,
From ev'ry blossom; till we lade
Our minds, as they their thighs.

Observe those rich and glorious things,
The rivers, meadows, woods, and springs,
The fructifying sun;
To note from far
The rising of each twinkling star
For us his race to run.

A little child these well perceives,
Who, tumbling in green grass and leaves,
May rich as kings be thought,
But there's a sight
Which perfect manhood may delight,
To which we shall be brought.

While in those pleasant paths we talk,
'Tis that tow'rds which at last we walk;
For we may by degrees
Wisely proceed
Pleasures of love and praise to heed,
From viewing herbs and trees.

I saw new worlds beneath the water lie,
New people; ye, another sky
And sun, which seen by day
Might things more clear display.
Just such another
Of late my brother
Did in his travel see, and saw by night
A much more strange and wondrous sight;
Nor could the world exhibit such another
So great a sight but in a brother.

Adventure strange! No such in story we
New or old, true or feigned, see.
On earth he seemed to move,
Yet heaven went above;
Up in the skies
His body flies
In open, visible, yet magic, sort;
As he along the way did sport,
Over the flood he takes his nimble course
Without the help of feigned horse.

As he went tripping o'er the king's highway,
A little pearly river lay,
O'er which, he dared to swim,
Swim through the air
On body fair;
He would not trust Icarian wings,
Lest they should prove deceitful things;
For had he fall'n, it had been wondrous high,
Not from, but from above, the sky.

He might have dropped through that thin element
Into a fathomless descent;
Unto the nether sky
That did beneath him lie,
And there might tell
What wonders dwell
On earth above. Yet doth he briskly run,
And, bold, the danger overcome;
Who, as he leapt, with joy related soon
How happy he o'erleapt the moon.

What wondrous things upon the earth are done
Beneath, and yet above, the sun!
Deeds all appear again
In higher spheres; remain
In clouds as yet,
But there they get
Another light, and in another way
Themselves to us
above
display.
The skies themselves this earthly globe surround;
We're even here within them found.

On heav'nly ground within the skies we walk,
And in this middle center talk:
Did we but wisely move,
On earth in heav'n above,
Then soon should we
Exalted be
Above the sky; from whence whoever falls,
Through a long dismal precipice
Sinks to the deep abyss where Satan crawls,
Where horrid death and despair lies.

As much as others thought themselves to lie
Beneath the moon, so much more high
Himself he thought to fly
Above the starry sky,
As
that
he spied
Below the tide.

Thus did he yield me in the shady night
A wondrous and instructive light,
Which taught me that under our feet there is,
As o'er our heads, a place of bliss.

To see us but receive, is such a sight
As makes His treasures infinite!
Because His goodness doth possess
In us, His own, and our own blessedness.
Yea, more, His love doth take delight
To make our glory infinite;
Our blessedness to see
Is even to the Deity
A beatific vision! He attains
His ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns.

For God enjoyed is all His end.
Himself He then doth comprehend
When He is blessed, magnified,
Extolled, exalted, praised, and glorified,
Honored, esteemed, beloved, enjoyed,
Admired, sanctified, obeyed,
That is received. For He
Doth place His whole felicity
In that : who is despised and defied,
Undeified almost if once denied.

In all His works, in all His ways,
We must His glory see and praise;
And since our pleasure is the end,
We must His goodness and His love attend.
If we despise His glorious works,
Such sin and mischief in it lurks
That they are all made in vain;
And this is even endless pain
To Him that sees it: whose diviner grief
Is hereupon (ah me!) without relief.

We please His goodness that receive;
Refusers Him of all bereave,
As bridegrooms know full well that build
A palace for their bride. It will not yield
Any delight to him at all
If she for whom he made the hall
Refuse to dwell in it,
Or plainly scorn the benefit.
Her act that's wooed yields more delight and pleasure
If she receives, than all the pile of treasure.

But we have hands, and lips, and eyes,
And hearts and souls can sacrifice;
And souls themselves are made in vain
If we our evil stubbornness retain.
Affections, praises, are the things
For which He gave us all those springs;
They are the very fruits
Of all those trees and roots,
The fruits and ends of all His great endeavours,
Which he abolisheth whoever severs.

'Tis not alone a lively sense,
A clear and quick intelligence,
A free, profound, and full esteem;
Though these elixirs all and ends do seem:
But gratitude, thanksgiving, praise,
A heart returned for all those joys,
These are the things admired,
These are the things by Him desired:
These are the nectar and the quintessence,
The cream and flower that most affect His sense.

The voluntary act whereby
These are repaid is in His eye
More precious than the very sky.
All gold and silver is but empty dross,
Rubies and sapphires are but loss,
The very sun, and stars, and seas
Far less His spirit please:
One voluntary act of love
Far more delightful to His soul doth prove,
And is above all these as far as love.

One star
Is better far
Than many precious stones;
One sun, which is by its own luster seen,
Is worth ten thousand golden thrones;
A juicy herb, or spire of grass,
In useful virtue, native green,
An em'rald doth surpass,
Hath in 't more value, though less seen.

No wars,
Nor mortal jars,
Nor bloody feuds, nor coin,
Nor griefs which those occasions, saw I then;
Nor wicked thieves which this purloin;
I had not thoughts that were impure;
Esteeming both women and men
God's work, I was secure,
And reckoned peace my choicest gem.

As Eve,
I did believe
Myself in Eden set,
Affecting neither gold nor ermined crowns,
Nor aught else that I need foget;
No mud did foul my limpid streams,
Nor mist eclipsed my sun with frowns;
Set off with heav'nly beams,
My joys were meadows, fields, and towns.

Those things
Which cherubins
Did not at first behold
Among God's works, which Adam did not see --
As robes, and stones enchased in gold,
Rich cabinets, and such-like fine
Inventions -- could not ravish me;
I thought not bowls of wine
Needful for my felicity.

All bliss
Consists in this,
To do as Adam did,
And not to know those superficial joys
Which were from him in Eden hid,
Those little new-invented things,
Fine lace and silks, such childish toys
As ribands are and rings,
Or worldly pelf that us destroys.

For God,
Both great and good,
The seeds of melancholy
Created not, but only foolish men,
Grown mad with customary folly
Which doth increase their wants, so dote
As when they elder grow they then
Such baubles chiefly note;
More fools at twenty years than ten.

But I,
I know not why,
Did learn among them too,
At length; and when I once with blemished eyes
Began their pence and toys to view,
Drowned in their customs, I became
A stranger to the shining skies,
Lost as a dying flame,
And hobby-horses brought to prize.

The sun
And moon forgone
As if unmade, appear
No more to me; to God and heaven dead
I was, as though they never were;
Upon some useless gaudy book,
When what I knew of God was fled,
The child being taught to look,
His soul was quickly murtherëd.

O fine!
O most divine!
O brave! they cried; and showed
Some tinsel thing whose glittering did amaze,
And to their cries its beauty owed;
Thus I on riches, by degrees,
Of a new stamp did learn to gaze,
While all the world for these
I lost, my joy turned to a blaze.

Give but to things their true esteem,
And those which now so vile and worthless seem
Will so much fill and please the mind
That we shall there the only riches find.
How wise was I
In infancy!
I then saw in the clearest light;
But corrupt is a second night.

Custom, that must a trophy be
When wisdom shall complete her victory;
For trades, opinions, errors, are
False lights, but yet received to set off ware
More false; we're sold
For worthless gold.
Diana was a goddess made
That silversmiths might have the better trade.

But give to things their true esteem,
And then what's magnified most vile will seem;
What's commonly despised will be
The truest and the greatest rarity.
What men should prize
They all despise:
The best enjoyments are abused;
The only wealth by madmen is refused.

A globe of earth is better far
Than if it were a globe of gold; a star
More brighter than a precious stone;
The sun more glorious than a costly throne -
His warming beam,
A living stream
Of liquid pearl, that from a spring
Waters the earth, is a most precious thing.

What newness once suggested to,
Now clearer reason doth improve my view;
By novelty my soul was taught
At first, but now reality my thought
Inspires; and I
Perspicuously
Each way instructed am by sense,
Experience, reason, and intelligence.

A globe of gold must barren be,
Untilled and useless; we should neither see
Trees, flowers, grass, or corn
Such a metalline massy globe adorn;
As splendor blinds
So hardness binds,
No fruitfulness it can produce;
A golden world can't be of any use.

Ah me! this world is more divine;
The wisdom of a God in this doth shine.
What ails mankind to be so cross?
The useful earth they count vile dirt and dross,
And neither prize
Its equalities
Nor Donor's love. I fain would know
How or why men God's goodness disallow.

The earth's rare ductile soil,
Which duly yields unto the plowman's toil
Its fertile nature, gives offense,
And its improvement by the influence
Of Heav'n; for these
Do not well please,
Because they do upbraid men's hardened hearts,
And each of them an evidence imparts.
He too well knows
That no fruit grows
In him, obdurate wretch, who yields
Obedience to Heav'n less than the fields.

But being, like his loved gold,
Stiff, barren, and impen'trable, though told
He should be otherwise, he is
Uncapable of any heavn'ly bliss.
His gold and he
Do well agree,
For he's a formal hypocrite,
Like that, unfruitful, yet on th' outside bright.

Ah, happy infant! wealthy heir!
How blessed did the heaven and earth appear
Before thou knew'st there was a thing
Called gold! barren of good, of ill the spring
Beyond compare!
Most quiet were
Those infant days when I did see
Wisdom and wealth couched in simplicity.

Sure Man was born to meditate on things,
And to contemplate the eternal springs
Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure;
That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure;
And therefore speechless made at first, that He
Might in himself profoundly busied be:
And not vent out, before he hath ta’en in
Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin.
Wise Nature made him deaf, too, that He might
Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight
In inward things, nor be depraved with tongues,
Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs
That mortal words convey. For sin and death
Are most infused by accursed breath,
That flowing from corrupted entrails, bear
Those hidden plagues which souls may justly fear.
This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case;
For nothing spoke to me but the fair face
Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak,
I then my Bliss did, when my silence, break.
My non-intelligence of human words
Ten thousand pleasures unto me affords;
For while I knew not what they to me said,
Before their souls were into mine conveyed,
Before their living vehicle of wind
Could breathe into me their infected mind,
Before my thoughts were leavened with theirs, before
There any mixture was; the Holy Door,
Or gate of souls was close, and mine being one
Within itself to me alone was known.
Then did I dwell within a world of light,
Distinct and separate from all men’s sight,
Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see
That were, or seemed, only revealed to me,
There I saw all the world enjoyed by one;
There I was in the world myself alone;
No business serious seemed but one; no work
But one was found; and that did in me lurk.
D’ye ask me what? It was with clearer eyes
To see all creatures full of Deities;
Especially one’s self: And to admire
The satisfaction of all true desire:
’Twas to be pleased with all that God hath done;
’Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun:
’Twas with a steady and immediate sense
To feel and measure all the excellence
Of things; ’twas to inherit endless treasure,
And to be filled with everlasting pleasure:
To reign in silence, and to sing alone,
To see, love, covet, have, enjoy and praise, in one:
To prize and to be ravished; to be true,
Sincere and single in a blessed view
Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within
A fort, impregnable to any sin:
Until the avenues being open laid
Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed:
Before which time a pulpit in my mind,
A temple and a teacher I did find,
With a large text to comment on. No ear
But eyes themselves were all the hearers there,
And every stone, and every star a tongue,
And every gale of wind a curious song.
The Heavens were an oracle, and spake
Divinity: the Earth did undertake
The office of a priest; and I being dumb
(Nothing besides was dum , all things did come
With voices and instructions; but when I
Had gained a tongue, their power began to die.
Mine ears let other noises in, not theirs,
A noise disturbing all my songs and prayers.
My foes pulled down the temple to the ground;
They my adoring soul did deeply wound
And casting that into a swoon, destroyed
The Oracle, and all I there enjoyed:
And having once inspired me with a sense
Of foreign vanities, they march out thence
In troops that cover and despoil my coasts,
Being the invisible, most hurtful hosts.
Yet the first words mine infancy did hear,
The things which in my dumbness did appear
Preventing all the rest, got such a root
Within my heart, and stick so close unto’t,
It may be trampled on, but still will grow
And nutriment to soil itself will owe.
The first Impressions are Immortal all,
And let mine enemies hoop, cry, roar, or call,
Yet these will whisper if I will but hear,
And penetrate the heart, if not the ear.

My contemplation dazzles in the End
Of all I comprehend,
And soars above all heights,
Diving into the depths of all delights.
Can He become the End,
To whom all creatures tend,
Who is the Father of all Infinites?
Then may He benefit receive from things,
And be not Parent only of all springs.

The End doth want the means, and is the cause,
Whose sake, by Nature’s laws,
Is that for which they are.
Such sands, such dangerous rocks we must beware:
From all Eternity
A perfect Deity
Most great and blessed He doth still appear:
His essence perfect was in all its features,
He ever blessed in His joys and creatures.

From everlasting He those joys did need,
And all those joys proceed
From Him eternally.
From everlasting His felicity
Complete and perfect was,
Whose bosom is the glass,
Wherein we all things everlasting see.
His name is Now, His Nature is For-ever:
None can His creatures from their Maker sever.

The End in Him from everlasting is
The fountain of all bliss:
From everlasting it
Efficient was, and influence did emit,
That caused all. Before
The world, we do adore
This glorious End. Because all benefit
From it proceeds: both are the very same,
The End and Fountain differ but in Name.

That so the End should be the very Spring
Of every glorious thing;
And that which seemeth last,
The fountain and the cause; attained so fast
That it was first; and mov’d
The Efficient, who so lov’d
All worlds and made them for the sake of this;
It shews the End complete before, and is
A perfect token of His perfect bliss.

The End complete, the means must needs be so,
By which we plainly know,
From all Eternity
The means whereby God is, must perfect be.
God is Himself the means
Whereby He doth exist:
And as the Sun by shining’s cloth’d with beams,
So from Himself to all His glory streams,
Who is a Sun, yet what Himself doth list.

His endless wants and His enjoyments be
From all Eternity
Immutable in Him:
They are His joys before the Cherubim.
His wants appreciate all,
And being infinite,
Permit no being to be mean or small
That He enjoys, or is before His sight.
His satisfactions do His wants delight.

Wants are the fountains of Felicity;
No joy could ever be
Were there no want. No bliss,
No sweetness perfect, were it not for this.
Want is the greatest pleasure
Because it makes all treasure.
O what a wonderful profound abyss
Is God! In whom eternal wants and treasures
Are more delightful since they both are pleasures.

He infinitely wanteth all His joys;
(No want the soul e’er cloys.)
And all those wanted pleasures
He infinitely hath. What endless measures,
What heights and depths may we
In His felicity
Conceive! Whose very wants are endless pleasures.
His life in wants and joys is infinite,
And both are felt as His Supreme Delight.

He’s not like us; possession doth not cloy,
Nor sense of want destroy;
Both always are together;
No force can either from the other sever.
Yet there’s a space between
That’s endless. Both are seen
Distinctly still, and both are seen for ever.
As soon as e’er He wanteth all His bliss,
His bliss, tho’ everlasting, in Him is.

His Essence is all Act: He did that He
All Act might always be.
His nature burns like fire;
His goodness infinitely does desire
To be by all possesst;
His love makes others blest.
It is the glory of His high estate,
And that which I for evermore admire,
He is an Act that doth communicate.

From all to all Eternity He is
That Act: an Act of bliss:
Wherein all bliss to all
That will receive the same, or on Him call,
Is freely given: from whence
’Tis easy even to sense
To apprehend that all receivers are
In Him, all gifts, all joys, all eyes, even all
At once, that ever will or shall appear.

He is the means of them, they not of Him.
The Holy Cherubim,
Souls, Angels from Him came
Who is a glorious bright and living Flame,
That on all things doth shine,
And makes their face divine.
And Holy, Holy, Holy is His Name:
He is the means both of Himself and all,
Whom we the Fountain, Means, and End do call