25 May 2011

Memorabilia

--Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
----And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
----How strange it seems, and new!

--But you were living before that,
----And you are living after,
And the memory I started at—
----My starting moves your laughter!

--I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
----And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
----'Mid the blank miles round about:

--For there I picked up on the heather
----And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather—
----Well, I forget the rest.

-Robert Browning

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