PRE-EXISTENCE

by: Frances Cornford

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,

Must 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 sand 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 today.

 

The waves came shining up the sands,

As here today 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 today,

And in my fingers long and brown

The little pebbles lay.

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