From Forests by Henry Kendall is the Perfect Poem to Enjoy While in the Mountains

I’m in beautiful Branson, Missouri this weekend enjoying my first Ozarks Writers League Conference as president. My room at the hotel is on the fourth floor with an amazing view of the Ozark Mountains for which this area is famous.

This section of the Ozark Mountains always makes my heart sing with peace and love. I searched for a poem that captured those feelings, and I think this one by Henry Kendall does a good job. I hope you enjoy this beautiful poem from 1881

From Forests By Henry Kendall

Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell The torrent voice rings strong And clear, above a star-bright well, I write this woodland song.

The melodies of many leaves Float in a fragrant zone; And here are flowers by deep-mossed eaves That day has never known.

I’ll weave a garland out of these, The darlings of the birds, And send it over singing seas With certain sunny words

With certain words alive with light Of welcome for a thing Of promise, born beneath the white, Soft afternoon of Spring.

The faithful few have waited long A life like this to see; And they will understand the song That flows to-day from me.

May every page within this book Be as a radiant hour; Or like a bank of mountain brook, All flower and leaf and flower.

May all the strength and all the grace Of Letters make it beam As beams a lawn whose lovely face Is as a glorious dream.

And may that strange divinity That men call Genius write Some deathless thing in days to be, To fill those days with light.

Here where the free, frank waters run, I pray this book may grow A sacred candour like the sun Above the morning snow.

May noble thoughts in faultless words In clean white diction make It shine as shines the home of birds And moss and leaf and lake.

This fair fresh life with joy I hail, And this belief express, Its days will be a brilliant tale Of effort and success.

Here ends my song; I have a dream Of beauty like the grace Which lies upon the land of stream In yonder mountain place.

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