XXXI - I am older than Nature and her Time

I am older than Nature and her Time

By all the timeless age of Consciousness,

And my adult oblivion of the clime

Where I was born makes me not countryless.

Ay, and dim through my daylight thoughts escape

Yearnings for that land where my childhood dreamed,

Which I cannot recall in colour or shape

But haunts my hours like something that hath gleamed

And yet is not as light remembered,

Nor to the left or to the right conceived;

And all round me tastes as if life were dead

And the world made but to be disbelieved.

      Thus I my hope on unknown truth lay; yet

      How but by hope do I the unknown truth get?