African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Sterling A. Brown, "Return" (1927)

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.


Published in Caroling Dusk, 1927

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