The Preparative
My Body being Dead, my Limbs unknown;
Before I skilled [sic] to prize
Those living Stars mine Eyes,
Before my Tongue or Cheeks were to me shown,
Before I knew my Hands were mine,
Or that my Sinews did my Members join,
When neither Nostril, Foot, nor Ear,
As yet was seen, or felt, or did appear;
I was within
A House I knew not, newly clothed with Skin.
Then was my Soul my only All to me,
A Living Endless Eye,
Far wider than the Sky
Whose Power, whose Act, whose Essence was to see.
I was an Inward Sphere of Light,
Or an Interminable Orb of Sight,
An Endless and a Living Day,
A vital Sun that round about did ray
All Life and Sense,
A Naked Simple Pure Intelligence.
I then no Thirst nor Hunger did conceive,
No dull Necessity,
No Want was Known to me;
Without Disturbance then I did receive
The fair Ideas of all Things,
And had the Honey even without the Stings.
A Meditating Inward Eye
Gazing at Quiet did within me lie,
And every Thing
Delighted me that was their Heavenly King.
