Classic Poem

I T is no dream! yet haunting visions come,
Most like remembrance, to my troubled mind,
Thoughts that I cannot crush or fling behind,
Of some old grouped trees, and cottage home,
And hills, which in a boyhood I did roam
The livelong summer day: I cannot find
Realities for things like these, which bind
My heart into a strange belief of some
Life before living. Does the spirit sleep,
Since 'tis immortal, until tardy fate
Shuts it within this frail and wayward heap
Of clay? Or, as the wise of old relate,
Are Lethe's waters not too dull or deep,
To quench all memory of a former state?

I T is no dream! yet haunting visions come,
Most like remembrance, to my troubled mind,
Thoughts that I cannot crush or fling behind,
Of some old grouped trees, and cottage home,
And hills, which in a boyhood I did roam
The livelong summer day: I cannot find
Realities for things like these, which bind
My heart into a strange belief of some
Life before living. Does the spirit sleep,
Since 'tis immortal, until tardy fate
Shuts it within this frail and wayward heap
Of clay? Or, as the wise of old relate,
Are Lethe's waters not too dull or deep,
To quench all memory of a former state?