Sonnet XXXI

I am older than Nature and her

By all the timeless age of Consciousness,

And my adult oblivion of the

Where I was born makes me not countryless.

Ay, and dim through my daylight thoughts

Yearnings for that land where my childhood dreamed,

Which I cannot recall in colour or

But haunts my hours like something that hath

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

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?