Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell <br />The torrent voice rings strong <br />And clear, above a star-bright well, <br />I write this woodland song. <br /> <br />The melodies of many leaves <br />Float in a fragrant zone; <br />And here are flowers by deep-mossed eaves <br />That day has never known. <br /> <br />I'll weave a garland out of these, <br />The darlings of the birds, <br />And send it over singing seas <br />With certain sunny words - <br /> <br />With certain words alive with light <br />Of welcome for a thing <br />Of promise, born beneath the white, <br />Soft afternoon of Spring. <br /> <br />The faithful few have waited long <br />A life like this to see; <br />And they will understand the song <br />That flows to-day from me. <br /> <br />May every page within this book <br />Be as a radiant hour; <br />Or like a bank of mountain brook, <br />All flower and leaf and flower. <br /> <br />May all the strength and all the grace <br />Of Letters make it beam <br />As beams a lawn whose lovely face <br />Is as a glorious dream. <br /> <br />And may that strange divinity <br />That men call Genius write <br />Some deathless thing in days to be, <br />To fill those days with light. <br /> <br />Here where the free, frank waters run, <br />I pray this book may grow <br />A sacred candour like the sun <br />Above the morning snow. <br /> <br />May noble thoughts in faultless words - <br />In clean white diction - make <br />It shine as shines the home of birds <br />And moss and leaf and lake. <br /> <br />This fair fresh life with joy I hail, <br />And this belief express, <br />Its days will be a brilliant tale <br />Of effort and success. <br /> <br />Here ends my song; I have a dream <br />Of beauty like the grace <br />Which lies upon the land of stream <br />In yonder mountain place.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-the-forests/
