I heard the Earth within me sing
As if it were a trancéd thing,
Or as if under thought's control
All things were chaunting in my soul.
I was the centre of the sphere,
And made the imaginary year,
Whose seasons four were each a mood
Like God's within His solitude.
The unborn may dream of our life
As we still dream of death, until
Its shadow falls upon our strife,
As the birth-light on the unborn will
When they emerge as from a tomb
Within the antenatal gloom.
Ah! they may guess at what we know,
May picture what their lives will be
When they into time's essence flow
And take on thought's reality,
As we may deem of death, who pass
Like shadows o'er the shining grass.