On Leaping over the Moon
I saw new Worlds beneath the Water ly,
New Peeple; yea, another Sky
And Sun, which seen by Day
Might things more clear display.
Just such another
Of late my Brother
Did in his Travel see, & saw by Night,
A much more strange & wondrous Sight:
Nor could the World exhibit such another,
So Great a Sight, but in a Brother.
Adventure strange! No such in Story we
New or old, tru or feigned, see.
On Earth he seem'd to mov
Yet Heven went abov;
Up in the Skies
His Body flies
In open, visible, yet Magick, sort:
As he along the Way did sport,
Over the Flood he takes his nimble Cours
Without the help of feigned Horse.
As he went tripping o'r the King's high-way,
A little pearly River lay
O'r which, without a Wing
Or Oar, he dar'd to swim,
Swim throu the Air
On Body fair;
He would not use nor trust Icarian Wings
Lest they should prov deceitful things;
For had he faln, it had been wondrous high,
Not from, but from abov, the Sky:
He might hav dropt throu that thin Element
Into a fathomless Descent;
Unto the nether Sky
That did beneath him ly,
And there might tell
What Wonders dwell
On Earth abov. Yet doth he briskly run,
And bold the Danger overcom;
Who, as he leapt, with Joy related soon
How happy he o'r-leapt the Moon.
What wondrous things upon the Earth are don
Beneath, & yet abov, the Sun?
Deeds all appear again
In higher Spheres; remain
In Clouds as yet:
But there they get
Another light, & in another way
Themselvs to us abov display.
The Skies themselvs this earthly Globe surround;
W' are even here within them found.
On hev'nly Ground within the Skies we walk,
And in this middle Center talk:
Did we but wisely mov,
On Earth in Hev'n abov,
Then soon should we
Exalted be
Abov the Sky: from whence whoever falls,
Through a long dismall Precipice,
Sinks to the deep Abyss where Satan crawls
Where horrid Death & Despair lies.
As much as others thought themselvs to ly
Beneath the Moon, so much more high
Himself he thought to fly
Above the starry Sky,
As that he spy'd
Below the Tide.
Thus did he yield me in the shady Night
A wondrous & instructiv Light,
Which taught me that under our Feet there is,
As o'r our Heads, a Place of Bliss.
To the same purpos; he, not long before
Brought home from Nurse, going to the door
To do som little thing
He must not do within,
With Wonder cries,
As in the Skies
He saw the Moon, O yonder is the Moon
Newly com after me to Town,
That shin'd at Lugwardin but yesternight,
Where I enjoy'd the self-same Light.
As if it had ev'n twenty thousand faces,
It shines at once in many places;
To all the Earth so wide
God doth the Stars divide
With so much Art
The Moon impart,
They serv us all; serv wholy ev'ry One
As if they served him alone.
While evry single Person hath such Store,
'Tis want of Sense that makes us poor.
Notes:
Poem composed ca. 1670-1674 (exact date unknown). First published in 1910.
Copyright Credit: Thomas Traherne, “On Leaping over the Moon” from Traherne’s Poems of Felicity, ed. H. I. Bell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910. Public domain.
Source: Traherne’s Poems of Felicity (Clarendon Press, 1910)