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
Shadows in the Water
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
In unexperienc'd Infancy
Many a sweet Mistake doth ly:
Mistake tho false, intending tru;
A Seeming somwhat more than View;
That doth instruct the Mind
In Things that ly behind,
And many Secrets to us show
Which afterwards we com to know.
Thus did I by the Water's brink
Another World beneath me think;
And while the lofty spacious Skies
Reversed there abus'd mine Eys,
I fancy'd other Feet
Came mine to touch or meet;
As by som Puddle I did play
Another World within it lay.
Beneath the Water Peeple drown'd,
Yet with another Hev'n crown'd,
In spacious Regions seem'd to go
As freely moving to and fro:
In bright and open Space
I saw their very face;
Eys, Hands, and Feet they had like mine;
Another Sun did with them shine.
'Twas strange that Peeple there should walk,
And yet I could not hear them talk:
That throu a little watry Chink,
Which one dry Ox or Horse might drink,
We other Worlds should see,
Yet not admitted be;
And other Confines there behold
Of Light and Darkness, Heat and Cold.
I call'd them oft, but call'd in vain;
No Speeches we could entertain:
Yet did I there expect to find
Som other World, to pleas my Mind.
I plainly saw by these
A new Antipodes,
Whom, tho they were so plainly seen,
A Film kept off that stood between.
By walking Men's reversed Feet
I chanc'd another World to meet;
Tho it did not to View exceed
A Phantasm, 'tis a World indeed,
Where Skies beneath us shine,
And Earth by Art divine
Another face presents below,
Where Peeple's feet against Ours go.
Within the Regions of the Air,
Compass'd about with Hev'ns fair,
Great Tracts of Land there may be found
Enricht with Fields and fertil Ground;
Where many num'rous Hosts,
In those far distant Coasts,
For other great and glorious Ends,
Inhabit, my yet unknown Friends.
- 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. 168 - 171Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014