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Thomas Traherne - Shadows in the Water
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In unexperienced infancy
Many a sweet mistake doth lie:
Mistake though false, intending true;
A seeming somewhat more than view;
	That doth instruct the mind
	In things that lie behind,
And many secrets to us show
Which afterwards we come to know.

Thus did I by the water`s brink
Another world beneath me think;
And while the lofty spacious skies
Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,
	I fancied other feet
	Came mine to touch or meet;
As by some puddle I did play
Another world within it lay.

Beneath the water people drowned,
Yet with another heaven crowned,
In spacious regions seemed to go
As freely moving to and fro:
	In bright and open space
	I saw their very face;
Eyes, hands, and feet they had like mine;
Another sun did with them shine.

`Twas strange that people there should walk,
And yet I could not hear them talk:
That through a little watery 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 called them oft, but called in vain;
No speeches we could entertain:
Yet did I there expect to find
Some other world, to please my mind.
	I plainly saw by these
	A new antipodes,
Whom, though they were so plainly seen,
A film kept off that stood between.

By walking men`s reversèd feet
I chanced another world to meet;
Though it did not to view exceed
A phantom, `tis a world indeed;
	Where skies beneath us shine,
	And earth by art divine
Another face presents below,
Where people`s feet against ours go.

Within the regions of the air,
Compassed about with heavens fair,
Great tracts of land there may be found
Enriched with fields and fertile ground;
	Where many numerous hosts
	In those far distant coasts,
For other great and glorious ends
Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.

O ye that stand upon the brink,
Whom I so near me through the chink
With wonder see: what faces there,
Whose feet, whose bodies, do ye wear?
	I my companions see
	In you another me.
They seemèd others, but are we;
Our second selves these shadows be.

Look how far off those lower skies
Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyes
I can them reach. O ye my friends,
What secret borders on those ends?
	Are lofty heavens hurled
	`Bout your inferior world?
Are yet the representatives
Of other peoples` distant lives?

Of all the playmates which I knew
That here I do the image view
In other selves, what can it mean?
But that below the purling stream
	Some unknown joys there be
	Laid up in store for me;
To which I shall, when that thin skin
Is broken, be admitted in.
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