Chapter III

The corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped
nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to
everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious
as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green
trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported
and ravished me; their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart
to leap, and almost mad with ecstacy, they were such strange and
wonderful things. The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures
did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and
sparkling angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and
beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street were moving jewels: I
knew not that they were born or should die. But all things abided
eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest
in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything
appeared, which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The
City seemed to stand in Eden or to be built in Heaven. The streets
were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes
and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes,
fair skins, and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the
sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine; and I the only
spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor
bounds nor divisions; but all proprieties and divisions were mine,
all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I
was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world,
which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again
that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.

These passages are succeeded in the MS. by the poem entitled "The Approach," which the reader will find at page 31 of the present volume.

In the following sections of the "Meditations" the author tells how these thoughts were first dimmed, and afterwards almost entirely lost owing to the evil influence of those around him. It is clear that his parents failed to appreciate the fact that their child was of a very uncommon type, and that the ordinary methods of dealing with children were inapplicable in his case. His early and innocent thoughts, he says, were quite obliterated by the influence of a bad education. He found that those around him were immersed in the trivial cares and vanities of common life; that they were wholly wrapped up in the outward shows of things, and were moved only by common and mercenary motives. Alas! this is the discovery that every poet makes, and it is this which constitutes the tragedy of life for him. Had any one, Traherne says, spoken to him on the great and sublime truths of God and Nature; had he been taught that God was good, and had made him the sole heir of a glorious universe; had he been assured that earth was better than gold, and water, every drop of it, a precious jewel, he would have thankfully received and gladly believed the lessons. But instead of this they tried to instil into his mind the lessons of selfishness and worldly wisdom.