On Leaping Over the Moon

I saw new worlds beneath the water lie,

New people; ye, 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, true or feigned, see.

On earth he seemed to move,

Yet heaven went above;

Up in the skies

His body flies

In open, visible, yet magic, sort;

As he along the way did sport,

Over the flood he takes his nimble course

Without the help of feigned horse.

As he went tripping o'er the king's highway,

A little pearly river lay,

O'er which, he dared to swim,

Swim through the air

On body fair;

He would not trust Icarian wings,

Lest they should prove deceitful things;

For had he fall'n, it had been wondrous high,

Not from, but from above, the sky.

He might have dropped through that thin element

Into a fathomless descent;

Unto the nether sky

That did beneath him lie,

And there might tell

What wonders dwell

On earth above.  Yet doth he briskly run,

And, bold, the danger overcome;

Who, as he leapt, with joy related soon

How happy he o'erleapt the moon.

What wondrous things upon the earth are done

Beneath, and yet above, the sun!

Deeds all appear again

In higher spheres; remain

In clouds as yet,

But there they get

Another light, and in another way

Themselves to us

above

display.

The skies themselves this earthly globe surround;

We're even here within them found.

On heav'nly ground within the skies we walk,

And in this middle center talk:

Did we but wisely move,

On earth in heav'n above,

Then soon should we

Exalted be

Above the sky; from whence whoever falls,

Through a long dismal precipice

Sinks to the deep abyss where Satan crawls,

Where horrid death and despair lies.

As much as others thought themselves to lie

Beneath the moon, so much more high

Himself he thought to fly

Above the starry sky,

As

that

he spied

Below the tide.

Thus did he yield me in the shady night

A wondrous and instructive light,

Which taught me that under our feet there is,

As o'er our heads, a place of bliss.