I Shall Be Coming Back to You

I shall be coming back to you

From seas, rivers, sunny meadows,

glens that hold secrets:

I shall come back with my hands full

Of light and flowers...

I shall bring back things I have picked up,

Traveling this road or the other,

Things found by the sea or in the pinewood.

There will be a pine-cone in my pocket,

Grains of pink sand between my fingers.

I shall tell you of a golden pheasant's feather...

Will you know me?

from "I Shall Come Back"

Hilda Conkling (age ten), 1922

I found it in "The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow: The Mystical Nature Diary of Opal Whiteley.”