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Thomas Traherne – On leaping over the moon

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
Like Icarus over the flood he soars
Without the help of wings or oars

As he went tripping o’er the king’s highway
A pearly river lay
O’er which, without a wing
Or oar, he dared to swim
Swim through the air
On body fair
He would not use nor trust Icarian wings
Lest they should prove deceitful things
For he had fallen, 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 bold he briskly runs
And soon the danger overcomes
Who, as he leapt, with joy related soon
How happy he o’er leapt the moon