Customer Reviews

Traherne: Selected Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics)

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Unfortunately this book is as rare as a diamond found in the street. If you are looking for innocence and purity, this voice from the 17th century in England might talk to you as it did to me. Traherne fits into a world described by Van Morrison, T.S.Eliot or William Blake. He seems to have antennas that are connected to Paradise, but not in a dry, scholarly way. His images are refreshing, personal, childlike. He is filled with a genuine, true love that communicates itself to the reader. Consider yourself a lucky person if you get in touch with this fountain of joy.

Traherne's work is deeply spiritual. His vision is clear and consistant. The impression of reading his work is of getting not only into the author's thoughts, but simultaneously his spirit. Written in post-Shakespearian England by a Presbyterian pastor. A must read.

traherne is writing based upon the reality of his spiritual experience, it is not something written merely for amusement or speculation.If a Christian has been given, by God, through divine union, the gift of peace passing all understanding, it acts as if an interruption in time.Time, in a spiritual sense, loses its flow and if we experience this state, there is a complete loss of every anxiety.....so we are not longing for the past or the future, but the NOW...THE PRESENT REALITY. This is where Traherne has encouraged me, because this has been my reality too though no amount of self effort could produce such a condition.It is too bad that Traherne is so unknown, but then, some one would have to experience what he is saying in his writings in order to understand them because this is not merely intellectual, like reading words off a page.Otherwise, it seems like so much pseudo science and abstract reasoning, but its not.Its a higher form of reality,realized only by those who pursue holiness and wait on the grace of God.And its possible though you will convince no one.Its all between you and God.Love Traherne.