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The Golden Age of Spiritual Writing
Thomas Traherne: Poetry And Prose
Thomas Traherne was one of the greatest poets and spiritual writers of the seventeenth century. Long overshadowed by fellow clergymen John Donne and George Herbert, his work is becoming increasingly recognized and appreciated for its singular voice. During his lifetime, only one of Traherne's theological works was published, followed by a second a year after his death. But for a series of recent, timely discoveries, the poet would have faded completely from view. Some of his newly discovered work is published for the first time in this volume, alongside familiar and much loved poetry and prose. This selection introduces a poet whose work, at its best, offers an exhilarating glimpse of the glory of heaven.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
3 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Traherne
87 books38 followersThomas Traherne, MA (1636 or 1637 – ca. 27 September 1674) was an English poet, clergyman, theologian, and religious writer. Little information is known about his life. The intense, scholarly spirituality in his writings led to his being commemorated by the Anglican Church on 10 October (the anniversary of his death in 1674).
The work for which he is best known today is the Centuries of Meditations, a collection of short paragraphs in which he reflects on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. This was first published in 1908 after having been rediscovered in manuscript ten years earlier. His poetry likewise was first published in 1903 and 1910 (The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. and Poems of Felicity). His prose works include Roman Forgeries (1673), Christian Ethics (1675), and A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God (1699).
Traherne's poetry is often associated with the metaphysical poets, even though his poetry was unknown for two centuries after his death. His manuscripts were kept among the private papers of the Skipps family of Ledbury, Herefordshire, until 1888. Then, in the winter of 1896–1897, two manuscript volumes containing his poems and meditations were discovered by chance for sale in a street bookstall. The poems were initially thought to be the work of Traherne's contemporary Henry Vaughan (1621–1695). Only through research was his identity uncovered and his work prepared for publication under his name. As a result, much of his work was not published until the first decade of the 20th century.
Traherne's writings frequently explore the glory of creation and what he perceived as his intimate relationship with God. His writing conveys an ardent, almost childlike love of God, and is compared to similar themes in the works of later poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His love for the natural world is frequently expressed in his works by a treatment of nature that evokes Romanticism—two centuries before the Romantic movement.
The work for which he is best known today is the Centuries of Meditations, a collection of short paragraphs in which he reflects on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. This was first published in 1908 after having been rediscovered in manuscript ten years earlier. His poetry likewise was first published in 1903 and 1910 (The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, B.D. and Poems of Felicity). His prose works include Roman Forgeries (1673), Christian Ethics (1675), and A Serious and Patheticall Contemplation of the Mercies of God (1699).
Traherne's poetry is often associated with the metaphysical poets, even though his poetry was unknown for two centuries after his death. His manuscripts were kept among the private papers of the Skipps family of Ledbury, Herefordshire, until 1888. Then, in the winter of 1896–1897, two manuscript volumes containing his poems and meditations were discovered by chance for sale in a street bookstall. The poems were initially thought to be the work of Traherne's contemporary Henry Vaughan (1621–1695). Only through research was his identity uncovered and his work prepared for publication under his name. As a result, much of his work was not published until the first decade of the 20th century.
Traherne's writings frequently explore the glory of creation and what he perceived as his intimate relationship with God. His writing conveys an ardent, almost childlike love of God, and is compared to similar themes in the works of later poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. His love for the natural world is frequently expressed in his works by a treatment of nature that evokes Romanticism—two centuries before the Romantic movement.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 7, 2018
I DO believ,
The Ev'ning being shady and obscure,
The very Silence did me griev,
And Sorrow more procure:
A secret Want
Did make me think my Fortune scant.
I was so blind, I could not find my Health,
No Joy mine Ey could there espy, nor Wealth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The shady Trees,
The Ev'ning dark, the humming Bees,
The chirping Birds, mute Springs and Fords, conspire,
While they deny to answer my Desire.
The Ev'ning being shady and obscure,
The very Silence did me griev,
And Sorrow more procure:
A secret Want
Did make me think my Fortune scant.
I was so blind, I could not find my Health,
No Joy mine Ey could there espy, nor Wealth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The shady Trees,
The Ev'ning dark, the humming Bees,
The chirping Birds, mute Springs and Fords, conspire,
While they deny to answer my Desire.
April 5, 2019
Thomas Traherne, despite living in the tumultuous 17th century, seems to have been obsessed with gratitude to God for the joy of being alive: having a body, meeting people, looking at nature, loving God: all the great things he can do. I am taking off one star because he does say it over and over again, but I do recommend this book full of joy.
April 22, 2024
A good book. Wandering, difficult, occasionally concerning theology-wise, but lovely prose and very thoughtful. Also, short, so a good introduction to see if you want to read more Traherne. I can tell why Lewis liked him.
September 28, 2021
Thomas Traherne, Anglican minister (1636 or 1637 – ca. 27 September 1674) has proven to be one of the most overlooked of the metaphysical poets, at least by modern readers: his "Shadows In The Water" is one of the best poems I've read, and his defining piece. Quoted by anthropologist/philosopher Ernest Becker in his Pulitzer Prize winning tome "The Denial of Death", it explores the spaces of "limen", or the liminal, which few poems get near.
Shadows in the Water
In unexperienced infancy
Many a sweet mistake doth lie:
Mistake though false, intending true;
A seeming somewhat more than view;
That doth instruct the mind
In things that lie behind,
And many secrets to us show
Which afterwards we come to know.
Thus did I by the water’s brink
Another world beneath me think;
And while the lofty spacious skies
Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,
I fancied other feet
Came mine to touch or meet;
As by some puddle I did play
Another world within it lay.
Beneath the water people drowned,
Yet with another heaven crowned,
In spacious regions seemed to go
As freely moving to and fro:
In bright and open space
I saw their very face;
Eyes, hands, and feet they had like mine;
Another sun did with them shine.
’Twas strange that people there should walk,
And yet I could not hear them talk;
That through a little watery chink,
Which one dry ox or horse might drink,
We other worlds should see,
Yet not admitted be;
And other confines there behold
Of light and darkness, heat and cold.
I called them oft, but called in vain;
No speeches we could entertain:
Yet did I there expect to find
Some other world, to please my mind.
I plainly saw by these
A new antipodes,
Whom, though they were so plainly seen,
A film kept off that stood between.
By walking men’s reversèd feet
I chanced another world to meet;
Though it did not to view exceed
A phantom, ’tis a world indeed,
Where skies beneath us shine,
And earth by art divine
Another face presents below,
Where people’s feet against ours go.
Within the regions of the air,
Compassed about with heavens fair,
Great tracts of land there may be found
Enriched with fields and fertile ground;
Where many numerous hosts
In those far distant coasts,
For other great and glorious ends
Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.
O ye that stand upon the brink,
Whom I so near me through the chink
With wonder see: what faces there,
Whose feet, whose bodies, do ye wear?
I my companions see
In you, another me.
They seemèd others, but are we;
Our second selves these shadows be.
Look how far off those lower skies
Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyes
I can them reach. O ye my friends,
What secret borders on those ends?
Are lofty heavens hurled
’Bout your inferior world?
Are yet the representatives
Of other peoples’ distant lives?
Of all the playmates which I knew
That here I do the image view
In other selves, what can it mean?
But that below the purling stream
Some unknown joys there be
Laid up in store for me;
To which I shall, when that thin skin
Is broken, be admitted in.
Shadows in the Water
In unexperienced infancy
Many a sweet mistake doth lie:
Mistake though false, intending true;
A seeming somewhat more than view;
That doth instruct the mind
In things that lie behind,
And many secrets to us show
Which afterwards we come to know.
Thus did I by the water’s brink
Another world beneath me think;
And while the lofty spacious skies
Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,
I fancied other feet
Came mine to touch or meet;
As by some puddle I did play
Another world within it lay.
Beneath the water people drowned,
Yet with another heaven crowned,
In spacious regions seemed to go
As freely moving to and fro:
In bright and open space
I saw their very face;
Eyes, hands, and feet they had like mine;
Another sun did with them shine.
’Twas strange that people there should walk,
And yet I could not hear them talk;
That through a little watery chink,
Which one dry ox or horse might drink,
We other worlds should see,
Yet not admitted be;
And other confines there behold
Of light and darkness, heat and cold.
I called them oft, but called in vain;
No speeches we could entertain:
Yet did I there expect to find
Some other world, to please my mind.
I plainly saw by these
A new antipodes,
Whom, though they were so plainly seen,
A film kept off that stood between.
By walking men’s reversèd feet
I chanced another world to meet;
Though it did not to view exceed
A phantom, ’tis a world indeed,
Where skies beneath us shine,
And earth by art divine
Another face presents below,
Where people’s feet against ours go.
Within the regions of the air,
Compassed about with heavens fair,
Great tracts of land there may be found
Enriched with fields and fertile ground;
Where many numerous hosts
In those far distant coasts,
For other great and glorious ends
Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.
O ye that stand upon the brink,
Whom I so near me through the chink
With wonder see: what faces there,
Whose feet, whose bodies, do ye wear?
I my companions see
In you, another me.
They seemèd others, but are we;
Our second selves these shadows be.
Look how far off those lower skies
Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyes
I can them reach. O ye my friends,
What secret borders on those ends?
Are lofty heavens hurled
’Bout your inferior world?
Are yet the representatives
Of other peoples’ distant lives?
Of all the playmates which I knew
That here I do the image view
In other selves, what can it mean?
But that below the purling stream
Some unknown joys there be
Laid up in store for me;
To which I shall, when that thin skin
Is broken, be admitted in.
August 29, 2021
Traherne proves a mostly mediocre poet, his poems mostly lacking any real direction, but on a few occasions (particularly when he leaves religious territory) they can be rather mystical and have a vibrant celtic feeling. In some verses or even just lines he is highly lyrical:
'The Coal which touched the Prophet's lips
Is his in Simple chips:
In evry Bush he sees a fire
In evry Rock a Spring,
To quench the Thirst of his Desire,
His God in evry thing.
All Heaven descends, environs, enters him;
He is transfigured to a Seraphim:... '
Surprisingly, I enjoyed his theological prose much much more. In its most common element it acts more like affirmations of faith in elegant language, a kind of open apologetic style — but it's finest contains beautiful meditations on God and Christ, discussions of human morality, at times twined strongly and energetically with autobiographical context. 'Centuries of Meditations' is a book I now wish to read.
Of the 'Priest-Poets' I have read only Donne — I think it's fairly obvious why Traherne stands somewhat in the background of the Christian poetry tradition, but I imagine more devout Christians who enjoy simply reading praise of God or Hymns would enjoy his poetry very much - it cannot be denied that he has a very distinct style.
'The Coal which touched the Prophet's lips
Is his in Simple chips:
In evry Bush he sees a fire
In evry Rock a Spring,
To quench the Thirst of his Desire,
His God in evry thing.
All Heaven descends, environs, enters him;
He is transfigured to a Seraphim:... '
Surprisingly, I enjoyed his theological prose much much more. In its most common element it acts more like affirmations of faith in elegant language, a kind of open apologetic style — but it's finest contains beautiful meditations on God and Christ, discussions of human morality, at times twined strongly and energetically with autobiographical context. 'Centuries of Meditations' is a book I now wish to read.
Of the 'Priest-Poets' I have read only Donne — I think it's fairly obvious why Traherne stands somewhat in the background of the Christian poetry tradition, but I imagine more devout Christians who enjoy simply reading praise of God or Hymns would enjoy his poetry very much - it cannot be denied that he has a very distinct style.
October 24, 2019
Traherne wrote expressive and playful little poems constructed with perfect meter and ryhme. He wrote devotional poetry as well as strange little meditations and stories.
Maybe his best and most famous is Shadows in the Water. Here he imagines a parallel world under the surface of water. If he was born later he might have been a sci-fi writer! An excerpt:
Thus did I by the water’s brink
Another world beneath me think;
And while the lofty spacious skies
Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,
I fancied other feet
Came mine to touch or meet;
As by some puddle I did play
Another world within it lay.
April 30, 2024
Like some sort of Walt Whitman of the middle ages, celebrating the beauty of his mind’s inner pastures, where his spirit roams and God’s love blooms, in the same way WW celebrated the wide open spaces of the world and the physical bodies that inhabited them. A world he’s elated to live and revel in, however true it is, caught somewhere between his imagination and the real thing.
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November 29, 2022My essay "The Texture of Traherne’s Religious Thought in the Centuries of Meditations" is posted on my blog at http://williamseaton.blogspot.com/201....
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews