Thomas Clayton Wolfe:
(Asheville, North Carolina, 3 October 1900 – Baltimore, 15 September 1938).
American writer.
Wolfe studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later at Harvard University. From 1924 to 1929, he also taught American literature there, but gave that up to focus entirely on writing. Wolfe travelled to Europe on several occasions, including Berlin and Paris, and became acquainted with prominent writers such as Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald.
All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.
Come up into the hills. O, my young love, return! O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. As first, I knew you in the timeless valley where we shall feel ourselves anew, bedded on magic in the month of June.
This is ‘not an idiom’ in the usual sense. It is a ‘literary quotation’ written in a poetic, emotional style.
The passage expresses:
– longing for a lost love
– grief for someone or something gone
– nostalgia for youth
– a desire to return to an innocent, beautiful past
The speaker calls out to a “ghost”:
> “O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”
Here, the “ghost” may mean:
– a dead or absent lover,
– a memory,
– lost youth,
– or the speaker’s former self.
The “hills,” “timeless valley,” and “month of June” suggest a magical, ideal place where love and youth might be recovered.
In simple terms, the passage means:
> “Come back to me, lost love or lost past. Return to the beautiful place where we were once young, happy, and alive.”
Origin đź“š:
The best-known line from the passage:
> “O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.”
comes from Thomas Wolfe’s novel:
> “Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life”
It was published in 1929.
The quoted wording belongs to Wolfe’s lyrical, poetic prose style. It appears in the opening/prologue of the novel and is one of his most famous lines.
Author ✍️: Thomas Wolfe.
– Full name: Thomas Clayton Wolfe
– Nationality: American
– Born: 1900
– Died: 1938
– Best known for: “Look Homeward, Angel”, “Of Time and the River”, and “You Can’t Go Home Again”.
