CALL OF THE TOWN

By Luis G. Dato

Recalling the far-away town of my childhood,
The city sounds harsh be it ever so wide and wise,
Compared to the hills and humming wildwood,
I knew, and the forest loud with bird-cries.

Home of my youth, happy town by the river,
It will be Maytime in your streets again,
And swallows flying by your bridge will quiver,
Pretty wings on the stream ere they skim the plain.

Blurred is the page of the book I lay to hearken
The call of the far-a-way town happy and wild,
Like clothes by the brook I’d lay my griefs that darken,
And wading the water be again for a day a child.