Return of the Exile

I could have toyed around With the floating currency But I stared far away into Africa And gravely sailed along Thinking nothing at all Of the world of solitude Neither expecting a judgment Nor indeed an attachment I was without company For the follies of mankind And the poor relations of misery Contrived to make her unkind: ‘Tis then I remembered My first day in church And the first sermon delivered On the first human catch I left nothing for history But took gifts from the creator To do service to my country Lest neglected, she flounder And lose her character at every word That becomes her unseemly corpse And my sojourn life’s topsy True, the years that followed The exile’s estrangement Had plundered continents Of his rare earlier wisdom But as the streams flowed Into the humane catchments They bore native sentiment Of love for his kingdom.