From the Forests

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.     Ill 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.