Shadows in the Water

In unexperienced

Many a sweet mistake doth lie:

Mistake though false, intending true;

A seeming somewhat more than view;

That doth instruct the

In things that lie behind,

And many secrets to us

Which afterwards we come to know.

Thus did I by the water's

Another world beneath me think;

And while the lofty spacious

Reversèd there, abused mine eyes,

I fancied other

Came mine to touch or meet;

As by some puddle I did

Another world within it lay.

Beneath the water people drowned,

Yet with another heaven crowned,

In spacious regions seemed to

As freely moving to and fro:

In bright and open spaceI 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

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

Some other world, to please my mind.

I plainly saw by theseA new antipodes,

Whom, though they were so plainly seen,

A film kept off that stood between.

By walking men's reversèd feetI chanced another world to meet;

Though it did not to view exceedA phantom, 'tis a world indeed;

Where skies beneath us shine,

And earth by art

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

Enriched with fields and fertile ground;

Where many numerous

In those far distant coasts,

For other great and glorious

Inhabit, my yet unknown friends.

O ye that stand upon the brink,

Whom I so near me through the

With wonder see: what faces there,

Whose feet, whose bodies, do ye wear?

I my companions

In you another me.

They seemèd others, but are we;

Our second selves these shadows be.

Look how far off those lower

Extend themselves! scarce with mine eyesI can them reach.

O ye my friends,

What secret borders on those ends?

Are lofty heavens hurled'Bout your inferior world?

Are yet the

Of other peoples' distant lives?

Of all the playmates which I

That here I do the image

In other selves, what can it mean?

But that below the purling

Some unknown joys there

Laid up in store for me;

To which I shall, when that thin

Is broken, be admitted in.