Perspective Poem by David Mitchell

How small those distant houses look
From this not great hill height:
How distant yonder gushing brook!
It seems the dazzling light

The sun provides, when view'd from here,
Is but a very small
(But potent) lightbestowing, mere
Eye-aching yellow ball!

And not more than a pinprick seems
Each lively twinkling star,
Beneath which we both live and dream:
When witness'd from so far.

To man, all is proportionless
On which he treads his toes;
He thinks he sees, but cannot guess
What's underneath his nose.

(Branton, Wednesday,5th April,2006.)