Traherne's Poems of Felicity Quotes

“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.”
― Thomas Traherne, Traherne's Poems of Felicity