The Salutation

• The Light Walking
• Light Gatherer
• Walking Away

These little Limbs,
These Eys & Hands which here I find,
This panting Heart wherwith my Life begins;
Where have ye been? Behind
What Curtain were ye from me hid so long!
Where was, in what Abyss, my new-made Tongue?

When silent I
So many thousand thousand Years
Beneath the Dust did in a Chaos ly.
How could I Smiles, or Tears,
Or Lips, or Hands, or Eys, or Ears perceiv?
Welcom ye Treasures which I now receiv.

I that so long
Was Nothing from Eternity,
Did little think such Joys as Ear & Tongue
To celebrat or see:
Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet,
Such Eys & Objects, on the Ground to meet.

New burnisht Joys!
Which finest Gold & Pearl excell!
Such sacred Treasures are the limbs of Boys
In which a Soul doth dwell:
Their organized Joints & azure Veins
More Wealth include than the dead World conteins.

From Dust I rise
And out of Nothing now awake;
These brighter Regions which salute mine Eys
A Gift from God I take:
The Earth, the Seas, the Light, the lofty Skies,
The Sun & Stars are mine; if these I prize.

A Stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see,
Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear,
Strange all & New to me:
But that they mine should be who Nothing was,
That Strangest is of all; yet brought to pass.

Thomas Traherne

• vocal - solo voice with piano