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.