 | The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer |  |
PRE-EXISTENCE.
[_]
[Cicero, in his treatise on “Old Age,” remarks in support of Plato's doctrine:—“Magno esse argumento homines scire pleraque antequam nati sint: quod jam pueri, quum artes difficiles discant, ita celeriter res innumerabiles arripiunt, ut eas non tum primum accipere videantur, sed reminisci et recordari.”]
Why, like a flash of light, upon the mind,
When lost in thought upon a foreign shore,
Cometh the strange impression that we find
The features of a landscape known before?
Oh! why, at times, when high discourse we hold,
Rusheth a wild remembrance on the brain,
That, wrapped in shadow, we rehearse again?
Words breathed, we know not where, in times of old,
Are present like a mirror that reflects
Scenes of a pre-existence, passing strange—
A dark and narrow isthmus that connects
The far-off Heretofore with Future change—
Wisdom, by years of pain and toil amassed,
Naught but a resurrection of the Past!
When lost in thought upon a foreign shore,
Cometh the strange impression that we find
The features of a landscape known before?
Oh! why, at times, when high discourse we hold,
Rusheth a wild remembrance on the brain,
That, wrapped in shadow, we rehearse again?
Words breathed, we know not where, in times of old,
Are present like a mirror that reflects
Scenes of a pre-existence, passing strange—
A dark and narrow isthmus that connects
The far-off Heretofore with Future change—
Wisdom, by years of pain and toil amassed,
Naught but a resurrection of the Past!
On the sensation that still uneffaced
Are characters of ante-natal lore,
His phantasy majestic Plato based,—
That knowledge is remembrance—nothing more:
And Tully, too, the silver-tongued and wise!
Fancied the Present but a passing show,
An apparition dim of long ago,
Waking a train of glorious memories;
And the gray laurelled bard of Rydal deems
That earth was not our starting-place, and Thought
Is conscious of a learning, elsewhere taught,
Compared with which attainments here are dreams;
The dazzling revelation of to-day
Light from an old Elysium far away.
Are characters of ante-natal lore,
His phantasy majestic Plato based,—
That knowledge is remembrance—nothing more:
And Tully, too, the silver-tongued and wise!
Fancied the Present but a passing show,
An apparition dim of long ago,
Waking a train of glorious memories;
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That earth was not our starting-place, and Thought
Is conscious of a learning, elsewhere taught,
Compared with which attainments here are dreams;
The dazzling revelation of to-day
Light from an old Elysium far away.
| The poetical works of William H. C. Hosmer | |