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
An Infant-Ey
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
A simple Light from all Contagion free,
A Beam that's purely Spiritual, an Ey
That's altogether Virgin, Things doth see
Ev'n like unto the Deity:
That is, it shineth in an hevenly Sence,
And round about (unmov'd) its Light dispence.
The visiv Rays are Beams of Light indeed,
Refined, subtil, piercing, quick and pure;
And as they do the sprightly Winds exceed,
Are worthy longer to endure:
They far out-shoot the Reach of Grosser Air,
Which with such Excellence may not compare.
But being once debas'd, they soon becom
Less activ than they were before; and then
After distracting Objects out they run,
Which make us wretched Men.
A simple Infant's Ey is such a Treasure
That when 'tis lost, w' enjoy no reall Pleasure.
O that my Sight had ever simple been!
And never faln into a grosser state!
Then might I evry Object still hav seen
(As now I see a golden Plate)
In such an hev'nly Light, as to descry
In it, or by it, my Felicity.
As easily might soar aloft as mov
On Earth; and things remote as well as nigh
My Joys should be; and could discern the Lov
Of God in my Tranquility.
But Streams are heavy which the Winds can blow;
Whose grosser body must needs move below.
The East was once my Joy; and so the Skies
And Stars at first I thought; the West was mine:
Then Praises from the Mountains did arise
As well as Vapors: Evry Vine
Did bear me Fruit; the Fields my Gardens were;
My larger Store-house all the Hemisphere.
But Wantonness and Avarice got in
And spoil'd my Wealth; (I never to complain
Can cease, till I am purged from my Sin
And made an Infant once again:)
So that my feeble and disabled Sense
Reacht only Near Things with its Influence.
- 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. 96 - 98Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014