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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


THE RETURN by JOHN BURROUGHS

Poet Analysis

First Line: HE SOUGHT THE OLD SCENES WITH EAGER FEET
Last Line: HE CANNOT GO BACK TO HIS YOUTH.
Subject(s): AGING; HOMECOMING; RELIGION; THEOLOGY;

He sought the old scenes with eager feet --
The scenes he had known as a boy;
"Oh, for a draught of those fountains sweet,
And a taste of that vanished joy!"

He roamed the fields, he wooed the streams,
His schoolboy paths essayed to trace;
The orchard ways recalled his dreams,
The hills were like his mother's face.

O sad, sad hills! O cold, cold hearth!
In sorrow he learned this truth --
One may return to the place of his birth,
He cannot go back to his youth.



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