Which afterwards we come to know

Shadows in the Water

Thomas Traherne, 1637 - 1674

In unexperienced infancy

Many a sweet mistake doth lie:

Mistake though false, intending true;

A seeming somewhat more than view;

 In things that lie behind,

 That doth instruct the mind
And many secrets to us show

Thus did I by the water’s brink
Which afterwards we come to know.

Another world beneath me think;

 Came mine to touch or meet;
And while the lofty spacious skies
Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,
 I fancied other feet

Yet with another heaven crowned,
As by some puddle I did play
Another world within it lay.

Beneath the water people drowned,

Eyes, hands, and feet they had like mine;
In spacious regions seemed to go
As freely moving to and fro:
 In bright and open space
 I saw their very face;

That through a little watery chink,
Another sun did with them shine.

‘Twas strange that people there should walk,
And yet I could not hear them talk:

Of light and darkness, heat and cold.
Which one dry ox or horse might drink,
 We other worlds should see,
 Yet not admitted be;
And other confines there behold


 I plainly saw by these
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.
 A new antipodes,

Though it did not to view exceed
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;
A phantom, ‘tis a world indeed;

Great tracts of land there may be found
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,

Whom I so near me through the chink
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,

Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyes
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

That here I do the image view
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

Is broken, be admitted in.
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