Songs I sang in childhood days, Ah! they filled,
My mind to sway like in that swing I sat,
Every time up I went saw the future ways so clear,
Every time down I came, a face I saw in mind so dear.
Never I remembered that face when youth took my hands,
And through the wilderness of life in all spirits, I ran,
The ways of mine of so wonderful I thought and the world,
Those ways disappeared like a mirage into a past I forgot.
Love came and went and became a grammarless myth,
Life became a hard rock song with a melancholy as a riff,
Untamed wrote, loud and clear sang, but paused before start,
About my dreams, I told none, as the one in there never smiled.
Youth never left though middle-age with all his might tried,
To masquerade my features with rough and tough looks so bare,
Still, to bring the youth out I smile at people known and unknown,
All smiled back with greetings pure, except the girl in my dreams.
Alas, she left my hand in my dream and took the hand of another,
Who still can show a feature or two I left in my youthful days,
Why these ways I have never seen when on that swing I sat?
I asked my conscience and my nights became dreamless dark.
A song from my youth through my saddened mind churned,
I closed my tears-filled eyes and sang that song,
In a flash that swing I saw, empty it swayed in a windless day,
And then I saw that face now all grown up sitting on that swing.
Tears-filled she sang the songs of my childhood days,
But gave a pretty smile, for me to remember my lost love.