I Shall Return

I shall return again; I shall return

To laugh and love and watch with wonder-eyes

At golden noon the forest fires burn,

Wafting their blue-black smoke to sapphire skies.

I shall return to loiter by the streams

That bathe the brown blades of the bending grasses,

And realize once more my thousand dreams

Of waters rushing down the mountain passes.

I shall return to hear the fiddle and fife

Of village dances, dear delicious tunes

That stir the hidden depths of native life,

Stray melodies of dim remembered runes.

I shall return, I shall return again,

To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.