The Winter Walk at Noon

Un pasaje de The Task, de William Cowper (Libro VI), en el que vemos en acción la memoria involuntaria proustiana más de cien años antes. Bueno, a mí por lo menos me ha recordado esto a Proust tanto como las madalenas mojadas en té. Hace sonar campanitas. Es el principio de "The Winter Walk at Noon".

The Winter Walk at Noon

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,

And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased

With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;

Some chord in unison with what we hear

Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.

How soft the music of those village bells,

Falling at intervals upon the ear

In cadence sweet, now dying all away,

Now pealing loud again, and louder still,

Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on?

With easy force it opens all the cells 

Where Mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard

A kindred melody, the scene recurs,

And with it all its pleasures and its pains.

Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,

That in a few short moments I retrace 

(As in a map the voyager his course)

The windings of my way through many years,

Short as in retrospect the journey seems,

It seemn's not always short; the rugged path,

And prospect oft, so dreary and forlorn,

Moved many a sigh at its disheart'ning length.

Yet feeling present evils, while the past

Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,

How readily we with time spent revoked,

That we might try the ground again where once

(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)

We miss'd that happiness we might have found!