One star
       Is better far
    Than many precious stones:
One sun, which is above in glory seen,
    Is worth ten thousand golden thrones:
    A juicy herb or spire of grass
    In useful virtue, native green,
         An emerald doth surpass,
Hath in't more value, though less seen.
                from THE APOSTASY
    

Thomas Traherne's poems were discovered in London in 1896 and originally assigned in error to Henry Vaughan. Later scholarship has established their true authorship. Traherne (1637-1674) was a remarkable religious writer. The son of a Hereford shoe-maker, he was well-educated, took religious orders and pursued a varied career. Prior to the discovery of his poems, he was best known for his Centuries of Meditations, of which passages from the third are most widely anthologised. The visionary precision of his prose characterises his verse as well: he is not an altogether orthodox mystic.

Dick Davis presents a selection from the full range of Traherne's poetry and prose and provides a critical and biographical introduction.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

A NOTE ON THE TEXT



The Author to the Critical Peruser

The Salutation

Wonder

Eden

Innocence

The Preparative

Dumbness

Silence

My Spirit

Nature

The Person

Love

The Rapture

Desire

On News

The Apostasy

Solitude

Bells

Christendom

Shadows in the Water

On leaping over the Moon

Dreams

Insatiableness

Hosanna

An Hymm upon St Bartholomew's Day

On the Bible



from The First Century

from The Second Century

from The Third Century