If life could have a second spring another youth for man to spend, eagerly I’d return again to the hills of my boyhood my way I’d wend. I’d stray again on those fair hills that words can’t tell their stately grandeur, I’d rove and play, and seek for thrills and love it all with boyish ardour. And then when tired, I’d rest awhile, the heather pressing ‘round me, warm, I’d nearly be as hard to find as the wary hare within his form. Then often in the summers heat, I’d leave some quiet, shady nook, to find a place I knew, more sweet, beside a rushing, gurgling brook. Sitting on the soft, green, mossy bank, bare legs immersed merged in the cooling water, looking for fishes that were seldom seen, listening to the mad brook’s mocking laughter. But no, alas, such things can’t be, cruel age will never compromise, no, nevermore I’ll thrill to see those hills of mine through boyish eyes.
October, 1941