
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 Vision
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
Flight is but the Præparative: the Sight
Is deep and infinit.
Indeed, 'tis all the Glory, Light, and Space,
The Joy and blest Variety
That doth adorn the Godhead's Dwelling-place:
'Tis all that Ey can see.
Even Trades themselvs, view'd with celestial Sight,
And Cares, and Sins, and Woes, giv Light.
Order the Beauty ev'n of Beauty is,
It is the Rule of Bliss,
The very Life and Form and Caus of Pleasure;
Which if we do not understand,
Ten thousand heaps of vain, tho massy, Treasure
Will but oppress the Land:
In Blessedness its self we that shall miss
(Being blind) which is the Summ of Bliss.
First then behold the World as thine, and well
Note that where thou dost dwell:
See all the Beauty of the spacious Case;
Lift up thy pleas'd and ravisht Eys;
Admire the Glory of this hevenly Place,
And all its Blessings prize.
That Sight well seen thy Spirit shal prepare
To make all other things more rare.
Mens Woes shal be but Foils unto thy Bliss,
Thou once enjoying this:
Trades shal adorn and beautify the Earth;
Their Ignorance shall make thee bright;
Were not their Griefs Democritus's Mirth?
Their Slips shal keep thee right:
All shall be thine Advantage; all conspire
To make thy Bliss and Virtu higher.
To see the glorious Fountain and the End;
To see all Creatures tend
To thy Advancement, and so sweetly close
In thy Repose: To see them shine
In serviceable Worth; and even Foes,
Among the rest, made Thine:
To see all these at once unite in thee
Is to behold Felicity.
To see the Fountain is a Blessed thing;
It is to see the King
Of Glory face to face: But yet the End,
The deep and wondrous End, is more;
In that the Fount we also comprehend,
The Spring we there adore:
For in the End the Fountain is best shewn,
As by Effects the Caus is known.
- 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. 102 - 103Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014