What powerful Spirit lives within! What active Angel doth inhabit here! What heavenly light inspires my skin, Which doth so like a Deity appear! A Living Temple of all ages, I Within me see A Temple of Eternity! All Kingdoms I descry In me. II An inward Omnipresence here Mysteriously like His within me stands Whose knowledge is a Sacred Sphere That in itself at once includes all lands. There is some Angel that within me can Both talk and move, And walk and fly and see and love, A man on earth, a man Above. III Dull walls of clay my Spirit leaves, And in a foreign Kingdom doth appear, This great Apostle it receives Admires His works and sees them, standing here. Within myself from East to West I move As if I were At once a Cherubim and Sphere, Or was at once above And here. IV The Soul's a messenger whereby Within our inward Temple we may be Even like the very Deity In all the parts of His Eternity. O live within and leave unwieldy dross! Flesh is but clay! O fly my Soul and haste away To Jesus' Throne or Cross-- Obey! POEMS EXTRACTED FROM TRAHERNE'S "CHRISTIAN ETHICKS" [All the following poems (excepting those in the "Appendix") are taken from Traherne's "Christian Ethicks." That they are all from his own pen cannot, I think, be doubted. They are entirely in his manner, and have little or no resemblance to that of any other poet. As the reader will see, I have, where necessary, quoted a few sentences from Traherne's prose in order to render the design of the verses more intelligible.] [From pp. 344-5] How glorious the Counsel and Design of God is for the Atchieving of this Great End, for the making of all Vertues more compleat and Excellent, and for the Heightening of their Beauty and Perfection we will exemplifie here in the Perfection of Courage. For the Height and depth and Splendor of every Vertue is of great Concernment to the Perfection of the Soul since the Glory of its Life is seated in the Accomplishment of its essence, in the fruit it yieldeth in its Operations. Take it in Verse made long ago upon this occasion--