Claude McKay

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.