forgetting

‘As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again.

‘So might we, if our state were such
As one before, remember much,
For those two likes might meet and touch.

‘But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace;

‘Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height,
Some yeaming toward the lamps of night;

‘Or if thro’ lower lives I came–
Tho’ all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame–

‘I might forget my weaker lot;
For is not our first year forgot?
The haunts of memory echo not.

‘And men, whose reason long was blind,
From cells of madness unconfined,
Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

‘Much more, if first I floated free,
As naked essence, must I be
Incompetent of memory:

‘For memory dealing but with time,
And he with matter, could she climb
Beyond her own material prime?

‘Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams–

‘Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare.’

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson, from The Two Voices