Outer and Inner Space (A Spenserian Sonnet)

Waiting for dawn I looked to outer space
beyond the moon past where our bold kind
has gone—nowhere—where winks no human face
and astronauts who sail there with their mind

They see the world below their feet designed
Some awesome power must that small globe protect
Yet no mad fool that power in his closed mind
can hold, but power such as that deserves respect

While to our eyes light’s course is so direct
Each mind unlike another has its train
What one sees another can’t detect
and, vision absent, argument is vain.

One eye will try to make another see
But mortal mind cannot tell mystery.