Sudden Light

 I used the phrase 'I have been here' before in yesterday's post without thinking: it was vaguely familiar, no more. Checking it out, I find that it comes from a rather lovely poem of Rossetti's  – 

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 turn'd 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?

('I Have Been Here Before' is also the title of a play by J. B. Priestley, written at a time when he was interested in theories of time expounded by J. W Dunne and P.D. Ouspensky.)