Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Poems from the Dobell Folio
- Poems of Felicity
- Dedication
- The Author to the Critical Peruser
- The Publisher to the Reader
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- An Infant-Ey
- The Return
- The Præparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- News
- Felicity
- Adam's Fall
- The World
- The Apostacy (‘Blisse’, stanzas 5 & 6)
- Solitude
- Poverty
- Dissatisfaction
- The Bible
- Christendom
- On Christmas-Day
- Bells. I
- Bells. II
- Churches. I
- Churches. II
- Misapprehension
- The Improvment
- The Odour
- Admiration
- The Approach
- Nature
- Eas
- Dumness
- My Spirit
- Silence
- Right Apprehension
- Right Apprehension. II (‘The Apprehension’)
- Fulness
- Speed
- The Choice (‘The Designe’)
- The Person
- The Image
- The Estate
- The Evidence
- The Enquiry
- Shadows in the Water
- On Leaping over the Moon
- ‘To the same purpos’
- Sight
- Walking
- The Dialogue
- Dreams
- The Inference. I
- The Inference. II
- The City
- Insatiableness. I
- Insatiableness. II
- Consummation
- Hosanna
- The Review. I
- The Review. II
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
On Leaping over the Moon
from Poems of Felicity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Poems from the Dobell Folio
- Poems of Felicity
- Dedication
- The Author to the Critical Peruser
- The Publisher to the Reader
- The Salutation
- Wonder
- Eden
- Innocence
- An Infant-Ey
- The Return
- The Præparative
- The Instruction
- The Vision
- The Rapture
- News
- Felicity
- Adam's Fall
- The World
- The Apostacy (‘Blisse’, stanzas 5 & 6)
- Solitude
- Poverty
- Dissatisfaction
- The Bible
- Christendom
- On Christmas-Day
- Bells. I
- Bells. II
- Churches. I
- Churches. II
- Misapprehension
- The Improvment
- The Odour
- Admiration
- The Approach
- Nature
- Eas
- Dumness
- My Spirit
- Silence
- Right Apprehension
- Right Apprehension. II (‘The Apprehension’)
- Fulness
- Speed
- The Choice (‘The Designe’)
- The Person
- The Image
- The Estate
- The Evidence
- The Enquiry
- Shadows in the Water
- On Leaping over the Moon
- ‘To the same purpos’
- Sight
- Walking
- The Dialogue
- Dreams
- The Inference. I
- The Inference. II
- The City
- Insatiableness. I
- Insatiableness. II
- Consummation
- Hosanna
- The Review. I
- The Review. II
- The Ceremonial Law
- Poems from the Early Notebook
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Manuscript Foliation of Poems
- Glossary
- Index of Titles and First Lines
Summary
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, and saw by Night,
A much more strange and 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, and yet abov, the Sun?
Deeds all appear again
In higher Spheres; remain
In Clouds as yet:
But there they get
Another Light, and 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 and Despair lies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Works of Thomas Traherne VIPoems from the 'Dobell Folio', Poems of Felicity, The Ceremonial Law, Poems from the 'Early Notebook', pp. 171 - 173Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014