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.