Pre-Existence

While sauntering through the crowded street Some half-remembered face I meet, Albeit upon no mortal shore That face, methinks, hath 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 Had been 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. A ship sails toward me o’er the bay And what she comes to do and say I can foretell. A prescient lore Springs from some life outlived of yore. O swift, instructive, 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 wide bewildering track Of countless eons; memories far High reaching as yon palled star, Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace Faints on the outmost rings of space.

Paul Hamilton Hayne.