While sauntering through the crowded street, Some half-remembered face I meet, Albeit upon no mortal shore That face, methinks, has smiled before. Lost in a gay and festal throng, I tremble at some tender song,— Set to an air whose golden bars I must have heard in other stars. In sacred aisles I pause to share The blessings of a priestly prayer,— When the whole scene which greets mine eyes In some strange mode I recognize As one whose every mystic part I feel prefigured in my heart. At sunset, as I calmly stand, A stranger on an alien strand, Familiar as my childhood’s home Seems the long stretch of wave and foam. One sails toward me o’er the bay, And what he comes to do and say I can foretell. A prescient lore Springs from some life outlived of yore. O swift, instinctive, startling gleams Of deep soul-knowledge! not as dreams For aye ye vaguely dawn and die, But oft with lightning certainty Pierce through the dark, oblivious brain, To make old thoughts and memories plain, Thoughts which perchance must travel back Across the wild, bewildering track Of countless æons; memories far, High-reaching as yon pallid star, Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace Faints on the outmost rings of space!
Pre-Existence
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