Indiana State Poem

"INDIANA"

by Arthur Franklin Mapes of Kendallville, adopted by the 1963 General Assembly

As found in Indiana Code 1-2-5-1:

God crowned her hills with beauty,
	Gave her lakes and winding streams,
Then He edged them all with woodlands
	As the settings for our dreams.
Lovely are her moonlit rivers,
	Shadowed by the sycamores,
Where the fragrant winds of Summer
	Play along the willowed shores.
I must roam those wooded hillsides,
	I must heed the native call,
For a Pagan voice within me
	Seems to answer to it all.
I must walk where squirrels scamper
	Down a rustic old rail fence,
Where a choir of birds is singing
	In the woodland...green and dense.
I must learn more of my homeland
	For it's paradise to me,
There's no haven quite as peaceful,
	There's no place I'd rather be.
Indiana...is a garden
	Where the seeds of peace have grown,
Where each tree, and vine, and flower
	Has a beauty...all its own.
Lovely are the fields and meadows,
	That reach out to hills that rise
Where the dreamy Wabash River
	Wanders on...through paradise.