I know not how, I know not where,
But from my own heart's mystic lore
I feel that I have breathed this air,
And walked this earth before;

And that in this, its latest form
My old-time spirit once more strives,
As it has fought through many a storm
In past, forgotten lives.

Not inexperienced did my soul
This incarnation's threshold tread;
Not recordless has proved the scroll
It brought back from the dead.

To certain, special lines of thought
My mind intuitively tends,
And old affinities have brought
Not new, but ancient friends.

What thrilled me in a previous state
Rekindles here its ancient flame;
What I by instinct love and hate
I knew before I came;

And lands, of which in youth I dreamed
And read, heart-moved, and longed to see,
When really visited, have seemed
Not strange but known to me.

When Mozart, still a child, untaught,
Ran joyous to the silent keys,
And with inspired fingers wrought
Majestic harmonies,

There fell upon his psychic ear
Faint echoes of a music known
Before his natal advent here,
In former lives outgrown.

In many a dumb brute's wistful eyes
A dawning human soul aspires,
For thus from lower forms we rise,—
Ourselves our spirits' sires.

Full many a thought that thrills my breast
Is fruit resulting from a seed
Sown elsewhere,—on my soul impressed
By many an arduous deed;

Full many a fetter which hath lamed
My struggling spirit's upward flight
Was once by that same spirit framed,
When further from the Light;

With justice, therefore, comes the pain
That o'er the tortured world extends;
And hopeful is the lessening stain,
As each life-cycle ends.

No changeless, endless states await
The good and evil souls set free;
Each grave is a successive gate
In immortality.

Too long this mighty truth hath slept
Among the darkened souls of men,—
"Ye cannot see God's face, except
Ye shall be born again."

The God-like Christs and Buddhas yearn,
However high their spirits' stage,
For man's salvation to return,
As Saviour or as Sage.

On our benighted, groping minds
Their noble precepts, star-like, shine;
Each soul, that wisely seeks them, finds
The truths that are divine.

Misunderstood and vilified,
Their aims and motives scarcely known,
How many of these Saints have died,
Rejected by their own!

Yet, though their followers miss the way,
In spite of precept and of prayer,
And lead unnumbered souls astray,
Committed to their care,

Upon the lofty spirit-plane,
Where all lies open to their sight,
The Masters know that not in vain
They left the Hills of Light.