A translator ought to be faithful, but is not bound down to being literal. - Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Sudden Light

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before, — How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall, — I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are.

Gather a shell from the strewn beach And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.