Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Sentiment: III. MemoryPre-Existence
Paul Hamilton Hayne (18301886)W
Some half-remembered face I meet,
That face, methinks, has smiled before.
I tremble at some tender song,—
I must have heard in other stars.
The blessings of a priestly prayer,—
In some strange mode I recognize
I feel prefigured in my heart.
A stranger on an alien strand,
Seems the long stretch of wave and foam.
And what he comes to do and say
Springs from some life outlived of yore.
Of deep soul-knowledge! not as dreams
But oft with lightning certainty
To make old thoughts and memories plain,
Across the wild, bewildering track
High-reaching as yon pallid star,
Faints on the outmost rings of space!