DOWN the lanes of boyhood, let me go once more, <br />Let me tread the paths of youth that I have trod before; <br />Let me wander once again where the skies are bright, <br />Freckled face and tanned of leg, roadways of delight, <br />Picking checkerberries as I laze along the way, <br />Hunting for the robin's nest — dozing in the hay. <br /> <br />Down the lanes of boyhood, there are joys untold, <br />Hidden caves of precious things, stores of yellow gold; <br />Friends that only boyhood knows, birds and trees and flowers, <br />Nodding to the youngsters 'Howdy do' in morning hours; <br />Skies that bend above them in the gentlest sort of way, <br />Fleecy clouds that seem to stop and watch them at their play. <br /> <br />Down the lanes of boyhood, hear their laughter ring! <br />See the tousled army marching straightway to a spring; <br />Flat upon the ground they fall, just to get a drink, <br />Here's a thirst emporium where glasses never clink, <br />No glittering place of red and gold the passer-by to snare, <br />Yet, rich with Nature's coloring, a thousand times more fair. <br /> <br />Down the lanes of boyhood, where innocence abounds, <br />A medley gay of colors, a revelry of sounds; <br />Where hearts are never broken and wrong is never known, <br />Where sorrow never enters and no one weeps alone. <br />And yet we never can return when once we've journeyed on, <br />Old age is ever wishing for the joys forever gone.<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lanes-of-boyhood/
