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THE HEART'S RETURN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When darkened hours come crowding fast
Last Line: Folding his happy sheep and knowing all his tasks are done.
Subject(s): Childhood Memories; Shepherds & Shepherdesses


WHEN darkened hours come crowding fast,
A thought—and all the dark is past.
For I am back a boy again,
Knee-deep in heading barley in a Mendocino glen.

I can not ever be so sad
But one thing still will make me glad—
That hid spring in the Suisun hills:
My heart keeps going back to it thru all the earthly ills.

How often when the brood of care
Would hold me in a hopeless snare,
My soul springs winged and away,
Remembering that wild duck's nest above Benicia bay.

Or when night finds me toiling still,
I am back again on the greening hill,
A shepherd boy at set of sun,
Folding his happy sheep and knowing all his tasks are done.





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