Memorabilia

by Robert Browning

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!

2.

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

3.

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

4.

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.