I laid me down upon the shore And dreamed a little space; I heard the great waves break and roar; The sun was on my face. My idle hands and fingers brown Played with the pebbles grey; The waves came up, the waves went down, Most thundering and gay. The pebbles, they were smooth and round And warm upon my hands, Like little people I had found Sitting among the sands. The grains of sands so shining-small Soft through my fingers ran; The sun shone down upon it all, And so my dream began: How all of this had been before; How ages far away I lay on some forgotten shore As here I lie to-day. The waves came shining up the sands, As here to-day they shine; And in my pre-pelasgian hands The sand was warm and fine. I have forgotten whence I came, Or what my home might be, Or by what strange and savage name I called that thundering sea. I only know the sun shone down As still it shines to-day, And in my fingers long and brown The little pebbles lay.
The Pelasgi were a people supposed to have inhabited Greece before the Greeks. ‘Pre-Pelasgian’ therefore refers to a very old, ancient time.
