Return

I have gone back in boyish wonderment
To things that I had foolishly put by. . . . 
Have found an alien and unknown content 
In seeing how some bits of cloud-filled sky 
Are framed in bracken pools; through chuckling hours 
Have watched the antic frogs, or curiously
Have numbered all the unnamed, vagrant flowers, 
That fleck the unkempt meadows, lavishly. 

Or where a headlong toppling stream has stayed
Its racing, lulled to quiet by the song 
Bursting from out the thickleaved oaken shade, 
There I have lain while hours sauntered past—
I have found peacefulness somewhere at last, 
Have found a quiet needed for so long. 

 

From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.