Sudden Light by 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 turned 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?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1863

I thought I would share this lovely poem this Sunday afternoon. I love its metaphysical, mystical qualities – the strong sense of déjà-vu it carries. The poem hints at our illusions regarding the nature of time, and the idea that past experiences and emotions can emerge at any moment in the present. It reminds me of Korean classic The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Manjung, that I have read recently. It concerned a Buddhist reincarnation (samsara).

The poem talks about the deeply spiritual, cyclical nature of love, and I think the repetition (“have been…before”) works particularly well here, emphasising the recurrence of past experience. The original version of the third stanza had an even stronger connotation of meeting and loving the same soul-mate throughout different life cycles: “Then, now,—perchance again!/ . . . .O round mine eyes your tresses shake!/Shall we not lie as we have lain/Thus for Love’s sake,/And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?“