If it be true, as some have dreamed, That all have lived and loved before, I cannot wonder it hath seemed That on some other shore, In former ages long ago, Our souls had met and learned to know The truths that now upon the sea Establish our affinity. Heart leaps to heart and mind to mind: A look, a word, a smile, a phrase, -- And we at once a kinship find, A relic of those days, When we both watched the sunset kiss The storied Bay of Salamis, Or paced beside the classic stream That borders Plato's Academe. -- Perhaps our spirits met again, When Virgil wrote his deathless lines, And Horace praised, in lighter vein, His farm amid the Apennines; Or else we walked this old, old Earth When Grecian learning found new birth, And arm in arm watched Giotto's tower Rise heavenward, like a peerless flower. Enough that we have surely met, No matter in what land or age; For, if such trifles we forget, We share a common heritage: And though in this brief life stern Fate Shall bid us once more separate, O brother poet, it must be That kindred spirits such as we Shall sail another ocean blue, Still you with me and I with you. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DEVASTATION by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON POSSUM SONG (A WARNING) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TO OUR MOCKING-BIRD; DIED OF A CAT, MAY, 1878 by SIDNEY LANIER MEMOIR OF A PROUD BOY by CARL SANDBURG THE GARDEN AGAIN by KAREN SWENSON MONOLOGUE FROM A MATTRESS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER |