Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE APOSTASY, by THOMAS TRAHERNE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE APOSTASY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: One star / is better far
Last Line: I lost: my joy turn'd to a blaze.
Variant Title(s): The Apostacy
Subject(s): Innocence


1

One star
Is better far
Than many precious stones:
One sun, which is above in glory seen,
Is worth ten thousand golden thrones:
A juicy herb, or spire of grass,
In useful virtue, native green,
An emerald doth surpass;
Hath in't more value, tho less seen.

2

No wars,
Nor mortal jars,
Nor bloody feuds, nor coin,
Nor griefs which they occasion, saw I then;
Nor wicked thieves which this purloin;
I had no thoughts that were impure:
Esteeming both women and men
God's work, I was secure,
And reckon'd peace my choicest gem.

3

As Eve
I did believe
Myself in Eden set,
Affecting neither gold, nor ermin'd crowns,
Nor ought else that I need forget;
No mud did foul my limpid streams,
No mist eclips'd my sun with frowns;
Set off with heavenly beams,
My joys were meadows, fields, and towns.

4

Those things
Which cherubins
Did not at first behold
Among God's works, which Adam did not see;
As robes, and stones enchas'd in gold,
Rich cabinets, and such like fine
Inventions; could not ravish me:
I thought not bowls of wine
Needful for my felicity.

5

All bliss
Consists in this,
To do as Adam did;
And not to know those superficial joys
Which were from him in Eden hid:
Those little new-invented things,
Fine lace and silks, such childish toys
As ribbons are and rings,
Or worldly pelf that us destroys.

6

For God,
Both great and good,
The seeds of melancholy
Created not: but only foolish men,
Grown mad with customary folly
Which doth increase their wants, so dote
As when they elder grow they then
Such baubles chiefly note;
More fools at twenty years than ten.

7

But I,
I knew not why,
Did learn among them too
At length; and when I once with blemish'd eyes
Began their pence and toys to view,
Drown'd in their customs, I became
A stranger to the shining skies,
Lost as a dying flame;
And hobby-horses brought to prize.

8

The sun
And moon forgone,
As if unmade, appear
No more to me; to God and Heaven dead
I was, as tho they never were:
Upon some useless gaudy book,
When what I knew of God was fled,
The child being taught to look,
His soul was quickly murdered.

9

'O fine!
O most divine!
O brave!' they cried; and show'd
Some tinsel thing whose glittering did amaze,
And to their cries its beauty owed;
Thus I on riches, by degrees,
Of a new stamp did learn to gaze;
While all the world for these
I lost: my joy turn'd to a blaze.





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