Aspiration
I
Unto the spring of purest life
Aspires my withered heart,
My soul confined in this flesh
Employs both strength and art
Working, struggling, suing still
From exile home to part.
II
Who can utter the full joy
Which that high place doth hold,
Where all the buildings founded are
On orient pearls untold,
And all the work of those high rooms
Doth shine with beams of gold!
III
The season is not changed, but still
Both sun and moon are Bright,
The Lamb of this fair city is
That clear immortal Light
Whose presence makes eternal day
Which never ends in night.
IV
Nay all the Saints themselves shall shine
As bright as brightest sun,
In fullest Triumph crowned they
To mutual joys shall run,
And safely count their fights and foes
When once the war is done.
V
For being freed from all defect
They feel no fleshly war,
Or rather both the flesh and mind
At length united are,
For joying in so rich a peace
They can admit no jar.
VI
For ever cheerful and content
They from mishaps are free;
No sickness there can threaten health,
Nor young men old can be:
There they enjoy such happy state
That in’t no change they see.
VII
Who know the Knower of all things
What can they choose but know?
They all behold each other’s hearts
And all their secrets shew:
One act of will and of not will
From all their minds do flow.
VIII
Though all their merits diverse be
According to their pains,
Yet Love doth make that every one’s
Which any other gains,
And all which doth belong to one
To all of them pertains.
IX
O Happy Soul which shall behold
Thy King still present there,
And mayst from thence behold the world
Run round, secure from fear,
With stars and planets, moon and sun,
Still moving in their sphere!
X
O King of Kings give me such strength
In this great War depending,
That I may here prevail at length,
And ever be ascending,
Till I at last arrive to Thee,
The Source of all Felicity!
[This poem is not Traherne’s, though I have copied it from his manuscript volume of “Meditations and Devotions.” It is a translation of S. Peter Damiani’s hymn, “Ad Perennis Vitæ Fontem,” which has been many times rendered into English. The above translation is from “The Meditations, Manuall, and Soliloquia of the Glorious Doctour, St. Augustine,” 1631. But it is much abridged and altered in Traherne’s version, and for that reason I have printed it here. Those who wish to refer to the original version will find it among the “Inedited Sacred Poems,” at the end of Mr. W. T. Brooke’s edition of Giles Fletcher’s “Christ’s Victory and Triumph.”]