Where I Long to Live Always

By Lena Carroll

I dream of a place where I long to live always,
    Green hills, shallow sand dunes, and nearing the sea;
The house is of stone, there are twelve lattice windows,
    A blue door, with a keyhole, tho' lost is the key.

Thick thatched is the roof, it has low white-washed chimneys,
    Where doves preen their wings and coo, "Love me, please love me."
There martins are flitting; the sun shines; the moon shines;
    Drifts of white flowers are adorned with the bee.
And a wonderful music of birdsong at daybreak,
    Wells up from the bosom of every tree;
A stream of clear water encircles the garden
    With kingcups and cress, and white fleur-de-lis.
Moor hens and dab-chicks; the wild duck at evening
    Wings away to the sunset in shape of a V.

The night shows the stars shining in all the windows.
    Brings nearer the far away sigh of the sea;
Oh! the quiet, the green, the grass, the grey willows
    The light and the shine and air sweet and free.
I would stay for a lifetime, my heart never weary,
    If at last with one loved there, at peace, I might be.

© circa 1950's Lena May Carroll
(in memory of her Vancouver, WA home)