Thomas Traherne(1637–1674)
The Salutation
T h e s e little limbs,
T h e s e eyes a n d h a n d s which here I find,
T h e s e rosy c h e e k s wherewith my life begins,
W h e r e have ye b e e n ? b e h i n d
W h a t curtain were ye f r o m me hid so long
W h e r e was, in what abyss, my s p e a k i n g t o n g u e ?
W h e n silent I
S o m a n y t h o u s a n d , t h o u s a n d years
B e n e a t h the d u s t did in a c h a o s lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or h a n d s or eyes or ears perceive
W e l c o m e ye treasures which I now receive.
I that so long
W a s n o t h i n g f r o m eternity,
D i d little think s u c h joys as ear or t o n g u e
To celebrate or see:
Such sounds to hear, such hands to feel, such feet,
Beneath the skies on such a ground to meet.
N e w b u r n i s h e d joys,
W h i c h yellow gold a n d pearls excel!
S u c h s a c r e d t r e a s u r e s are the limbs in boys,
In w h i c h a soul doth dwell;
T h e i r organized joints a n d azure veins
M o r e wealth include than all the world contains.
F r o m dust I rise,
A n d out of nothing n o w awake;
T h e s e brighter regions w h i c h salute m i n e eyes,
A gift f r o m G o d I take.
T h e earth, the seas, the light, the day, the skies,
T h e s u n a n d stars are m i n e if those I prize.
L o n g time b e f o r e
I in my mother's w o m b w a s born,
A G o d , preparing, did this glorious store,
T h e world, for me adorn.
Into this E d e n so divine a n d fair,
So wide a n d bright, I c o m e His son a n d heir.
*Traherne's poems were discovered in 1903 by the lished in his lifetime, an anti-Catholic prose tract
scholar Bertram Dobell, who found an anonymous called Roman Forgeries (1673). Traherne's poems
manuscript and attributed it to Traherne after do not appear to have circulated widely (if at all)
comparing it with the one work that Traherne pub-during his lifetime.
A stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear,
Strange all and new to me;
But that they mine should be, who nothing was,
That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.
ca. 16651903