By green and windblown rippled slopes
where cattle graze in summer sun;
beneath blue skies where larks sing shrill
and rabbits by the hedgerows run.
When meadowsweet and columbine
bedeck the grass like ocean foam;
we soft return like shadows lost
to seek our old ancestral home.

Within the tree-lined borderlands
we wait until the day is done;
‘til passing fancies leave us be
and once again our time is come.
When doors and gates are closed and locked
we slip within as night winds roam;
and talk in whispered secrecy
of times in our ancestral home.

No more within cold fireplace
do fallen logs burn bright and fair;
from panelled walls in sullen oils
dark portraits of the long dead stare.
On bowing shelves of oak repose
the toils of men in leathern tome;
unread and lost for centuries,
hid deep in our ancestral home.

And through the watches of the night
we drift from room to balcony;
recalling days of childhood lost,
and laughter of sweet memory.
Yet all too soon we must be gone
‘ere birds again chorale the dawn;
and disappear like shadows soft
that fly from our ancestral home.

In my own little world fireflies stay in open jars
Flowers paint on their colors for the next day,
And the moon laughs while it walks away.
The trees speak of ancient scars,
The creek brings up lost trinkets from afar,
And the animals cry for freedom,
But freedom is not free.