Page:Ethel Churchill Fragments III.pdf/38



Remembrance makes the poet: 'tis the past Lingering within him, with a keener sense Than is upon the thoughts of common men, Of what has been, that fills the actual world With unreal likenesses of lovely shapes That were, and are not; and the fairer they, The more their contrast with existing things; The more his power, the greater is his grief. Are we then fallen from some noble star, Whose consciousness is as an unknown curse; And we feel capable of happiness Only to know it is not of our sphere?