This poem also appeared in Spring in New Hampshire 1920 [†] Claude McKay I Shall Return Claude McKay Spring in New Hampshire London Grant Richards Ltd. 1920 27 and Cambridge Magazine Summer, 1920 [#] I Shall Return Cambridge Magazine Summer, 1920 58 .
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 realise†# 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 runes1.:†#
I shall return, I shall return again,†#
To ease my mind of long, long years of pain.