Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

Dumbness

Thomas Traherne (1637?–1674)

SURE Man was born to meditate on things,

And to contemplate the eternal springs

Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure;

That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure;

And therefore speechless made at first, that He

Might in himself profoundly busied be:

And not vent out, before he hath ta’en in

Those antidotes that guard his soul from sin.

Wise Nature made him deaf, too, that He might

Not be disturbed, while he doth take delight

In inward things, nor be deprav’d with tongues,

Nor injured by the errors and the wrongs

That mortal words convey. For sin and death

Are most infused by accursèd breath,

That flowing from corrupted entrails, bear

Those hidden plagues which souls may justly fear.

This, my dear friends, this was my blessed case;

For nothing spoke to me but the fair face

Of Heaven and Earth, before myself could speak,

I then my Bliss did, when my silence, break.

My non-intelligence of human words

Ten thousand pleasures unto me affords;

For while I knew not what they to me said,

Before their souls were into mine convey’d,

Before that living vehicle of wind

Could breathe into me their infected mind,

Before my thoughts were leaven’d with theirs, before

There any mixture was; the Holy Door,

Or gate of souls was close, and mine being one

Within itself to me alone was known.

Then did I dwell within a world of light,

Distinct and separate from all men’s sight,

Where I did feel strange thoughts, and such things see

That were, or seem’d, only reveal’d to me,

There I saw all the world enjoyed by one;

There I was in the world myself alone;

No business serious seemed but one; no work

But one was found; and that in me did lurk.

D’ye ask me what? It was with clearer eyes

To see all creatures full of Deities;

Especially one’s self: And to admire

The satisfaction of all true desire:

’Twas to be pleased with all that God hath done;

’Twas to enjoy even all beneath the sun:

’Twas with a steady and immediate sense

To feel and measure all the excellence

Of things; ’twas to inherit endless treasure,

And to be filled with everlasting pleasure:

To reign in silence, and to sing alone,

To see, love, covet, have, enjoy and praise, in one:

To prize and to be ravish’d; to be true,

Sincere and single in a blessed view

Of all His gifts. Thus was I pent within

A fort, impregnable to any sin:

Until the avenues being open laid

Whole legions entered, and the forts betrayed:

Before which time a pulpit in my mind,

A temple and a teacher I did find,

With a large text to comment on. No ear

But eyes themselves were all the hearers there,

And every stone, and every star a tongue,

And every gale of wind a curious song.

The Heavens were an oracle, and spake

Divinity: the Earth did undertake

The office of a priest; and I being dumb

(Nothing besides was dumb), all things did come

With voices and instructions; but when I

Had gained a tongue, their power began to die.

Mine ears let other noises in, not theirs,

A noise disturbing all my songs and prayers.

My foes pulled down the temple to the ground;

They my adoring soul did deeply wound

And casting that into a swoon, destroyed

The Oracle, and all I there enjoyed:

And having once inspired me with a sense

Of foreign vanities, they march out thence

In troops that cover and despoil my coasts,

Being the invisible, most hurtful hosts.

Yet the first words mine infancy did hear

The things which in my dumbness did appear,

Preventing all the rest, got such a root

Within my heart, and stick so close unto ’t,

It may be trampled on, but still will grow

And nutriment to soil itself will owe.

The first Impressions are Immortal all,

And let mine enemies hoop, cry, roar, or call,

Yet these will whisper if I will but hear,

And penetrate the heart, if not the ear.