The Lantern

Book 421

PG

Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes,

Nor lightly think our senses everywhere

Are tottering. The ship in which we sail

Is borne along, although it seems to stand;

The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed

There to be passing by. And hills and fields

Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge

The ship and fly under the bellying sails.

The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed

To the ethereal caverns, though they all

Forever are in motion, rising out

And thence revisiting their far descents

When they have measured with their bodies bright

The span of heaven. And likewise sun and moon

Seem biding in a roadstead,--objects which,

As plain fact proves, are really borne along.

Between two mountains far away aloft

From midst the whirl of waters open lies

A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet

They seem conjoined in a single isle.

When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round,

The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel,

Until they now must almost think the roofs

Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.

And now, when nature begins to lift on high