Mirage
Mirage , noun
[French, from mirer to look at carefully, to aim, se mirer to look at one's self in a glass, to reflect, to be reflected, Late Latin mirare to look at. See Mirror.]
An inverted image due to atmospheric refraction. Multiple images, alternately erect and inverted, are produced by large changes in lapse rate with height. Inferior mirages (below eye level) are seen over paving, water, sand, snow, sunlit walls, freezing lakes and rivers, and other smooth surfaces warmer than the adjacent air. Objects appear as if reflected by a sheet of water, or may seem suspended in the air above a narrow strip of miraged sky; or the shadowed undersides of vehicles and leaves appear as dark patches that recede as an observer approaches them. Superior mirages are due to thermal inversions above colder surfaces, and produce inverted images above the horizontal. The Fata Morgana is a superior mirage characterized by a striated zone of extreme vertical elongation, which may resemble columnar basalt. Other types of mirage also occur; all are refraction phenomena with inverted images.
By the mirage uplifted the land floats vague in the ether,
Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air.