Dignity, have you ever read Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality? Here is a link (sorry, I don't know how to make it a clickable one yet):
http://www.bartleby.com/101/536.html
Wordsworth gives his explanation of that "missing feeling" in such a beautiful way. I reread this poem often, and the older I get, the more I seem to recognize what he's trying to say. It's sad, yet oddly comforting to me.