The following piece takes excerpts from the poetry of Thomas Traherne – an English poet who lived in Herefordshire in the 17th century.
He believed in the power of nature to express aesthetically how our physical, mental and spiritual being is intertwined as one.
His work was largely unknown in his time and seen as sentimental by the puritans of the day. However, his almost childlike directness and positive message is captured in one of my favourite lines:
My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious, I knew not that there were any sins or complaints or laws
We live in a world that is not ‘spotless and pure’. However, such visions provide us all with an ideal – a perfection towards which we can journey.
The following piece takes excerpts from the poetry of Thomas Traherne – an English poet who lived in Herefordshire in the 17th century.
He believed in the power of nature to express aesthetically how our physical, mental and spiritual being is intertwined as one.
His work was largely unknown in his time and seen as sentimental by the puritans of the day. However, his almost childlike directness and positive message is captured in one of my favourite lines:
My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious, I knew not that there were any sins or complaints or laws
We live in a world that is not ‘spotless and pure’. However, such visions provide us all with an ideal – a perfection towards which we can journey.
Light,
David.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 3:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
