[BNP/E3, 16A – 43]

p. 599 [870]

…|24|XII/12

I am older than Nature and her Time

By all the timeless age[1] of Consciousness,

And my adult oblivion of the clime

Where I was born makes me not countryless…

_______

Ay, and dim through my daily thoughts escape

Yearnings for that land where my childhood dreamed,

Which I cannot recall in colour or shape,

But haunts my hours like something that hath gleamed.

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 dead

And the world made but to be disbelieved.

This while too little is to give Hope hope

And too much to be subject to despair

[43v]

I this thing love that is not live nor dead,

     Thus I my hope on unknown truths do lay.

     How can except by Hope call I[2]

     |Thus I hope on unknown truth lay, yet how

     Except by Hope do I aught unknown truth know?|

______________________________________________________

     Thus I may hope on unknown truths lay, yet

     How but by hope do I the unknown truth get?

 
[1] timeless age /untimed gone-age\
[2] except /but\ by Hope call I /do I the unknown true say.\