"our secret selves"

"And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,

Vaguely and incoherently, some dream

Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .

A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;

Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.

We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;

We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;

We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.

We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.

We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays"

Conrad Aiken