But they can not prove to you quite so interesting as the poems which treat the recollection of past life.

When we consider the past imaginatively, we have some ground to stand on.

The past has been--there is no doubt about that.

The fact that we are at this moment alive makes it seem sufficiently true that we were alive thousands or millions of years ago.

But when we turn to the future for poetical inspiration, the case is very different.