Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CHRISTIAN ETHICS: CONTENTMENT, by THOMAS TRAHERNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CHRISTIAN ETHICS: CONTENTMENT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Contentment is a sleepy thing
Last Line: Stretch'd out to all things, and with all content!
Subject(s): Contentment


Contentment is a sleepy thing!
If it in death alone must die;
A quiet mind is worse than poverty!
Unless it from enjoyment spring!
That's blessedness alone that makes a king!
Wherein the joys and treasures are so great,
They all the powers of the soul employ,
And fill it with a work complete,
While it doth all enjoy.
True joys alone contentment do inspire,
Enrich content, and make our courage higher.
Content alone's a dead and silent stone:
The real life of bliss
Is glory reigning in a throne,
Where all enjoyment is.
The soul of man is so inclin'd to see,
Without his treasures no man's soul can be,
Nor rest content uncrown'd!
Desire and love
Must in the height of all their rapture move,
Where there is true felicity.
Employment is the very life and ground
Of life itself; whose pleasant motion is
The form of bliss:
All blessedness a life with glory crown'd.
Life! Life is all: in its most full extent
Stretch'd out to all things, and with all content!





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