Indiana

State Poem

Title:
"Indiana"

Author:
Arthur Franklin Mapes

Legislation Recognizing Official Status:
Adopted in 1963 by the General Assembly; codified in IC 1-2-5.

Poem Text:

                 Indiana

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.