
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
The Improvment
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
Tis more to recollect, then 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.
2
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 Forming of the fruitFull Ground;
Before we can that Happiness descrie,
Which is the Daughter of the DEITIE.
3
His Wisdom shines in Spreading forth the Skie,
His Power's Great in Ordering the Sun,
His Goodness very Marvellous and High
Appears, in evry Work his Hand hath done.
And all his Works in their varietie,
Even Scattered abroad delight the Eye.
4
But neither Goodness, Wisdom, Power, nor Love,
Nor Happiness it self in things could be,
Did not they all in one fair Order move,
And joyntly by their Service End in me.
Had he not made an Ey to be the Sphere
Of all Things, none of these would e're appear.
5
His Wisdom, Goodness, Power, as they unite
All things in one, that they may be the Treasures
Of one Enjoy'r, shine in the utmost Height
They can attain; and are most Glorious Pleasures,
When all the Univers conjoynd in one,
Exalts a Creature, as if that alone.
6
To bring the moisture of far distant Seas
Into a point, to make them present here,
In virtu, not in Bulk; one man to pleas
With all the Powers of the Highest Sphere,
From East, from West, from North and South, to bring
The pleasing Influence of evry thing;
7
Is far more Great then to Creat them there
Where now they stand; His Wisdom more doth shine
In that, his Might and Goodness more appear,
In recollecting; He is more Divine
In making evry Thing a Gift to one
Then in the Parts of all his Spacious 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. 17 - 20Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014