Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
from THE TOWN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- No Wings
- Preface to Second Edition
- Foreword to Second Edition
- Introduction to Second Edition
- A Note of History
- Should I Ever…
- THE COUNTRYSIDE
- AKAN
- EWE
- GA-ADANGME
- DAGOMBA
- HAUSA
- THE TOWN
- Tumble-Down Woods
- Tough Guy in Town
- In the Streets of Accra
- Snuff and the Ashes
- Radio Dance Hour
- This is Experience Speaking
- Palm Leaves of Childhood
- Hot Day
- The Literary Society
- It's Ritual Murder
- The Wrong Packing Case
- Lines on Korle Bu
- Pay Day
- The Walk of Life (Agbezoli)
- Peace
- Heaven is a Fine Place
- Ata
- Complaint
- To My Mother
- Oh! My Brother
- The Homeless Boy
- The Lone Horse
- The Perfect Understander
- The Woods Decay
- On Parting
- To the Night Insects
- The Blind Man from the North
- A Second Birthday
- In God's Tired Face
- The Executioner's Dream
- Had I Known
- Re-incarnation
- Ancestral Faces
- ‘O Forest, Dear Forest’
- My Sea Adventure
- The Passing of The King
- Patriotism
- African Heaven
- The Ghosts
- The Herdsman from Wa
- Pa Grant Due
- The Mosquito and the Young Ghanaian
- Unity in Diversity
- The Journey to Independence
- Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah
- The Dawn of the New Era
- The Meaning of Independence
- National Anthem
- The Contributors
- Index
Summary
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
There is happiness in the forest,
There is rapture in the lonesome valley,
There is unity, which none interferes,
In the dead night, strange shrilling sounds roar;
I love not man the less, but
Nature the more.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
These interviews from which
I build my permanent existence;
To mingle with the universe,
And feel
What I can ne'er expose,
Yet cannot all conceal.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
There is yet a place of shelter,
Where the enemy cannot come,
Where the battle trumpet ne'er
Sounded or the drum.
Twenty thousand battalions
Sweep through in vain.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
Man marks the earth with ruin,
His control stops at the outskirts;
There are gallant soldiers,
There are potential natural weapons
Of war,
There is tranquillity and felicity.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
Hark, O Forest! I am the forest,
My realm is full of rich resources
Enemies ever try in vain to capture;
My defence forces are genuine.
The lofty trees point vertically
Towards the lovely blue sky.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
My babies fall to the ground as they are old;
New babies take their places;
My babies are full of rapture.
In my lonesome world,
Hark! Sweet songs pierce the air,
Beasts and birds make my world lovely.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
Hark! I am the forest;
There are wooden-built cities,
The seasons determine my existence's nature.
I am an isolated kingdom,
Man toils in my kingdom for wealth;
There is a rapture for man.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
O Forest! I conceal my identity,
To mingle with the universe;
Man destroys me to build great cities,
My vast realm man cannot destroy.
The armaments which thunder-strike
My city walls, no effect have they on me.
O Forest! O Forest! Dear Forest!
Birds and beasts, merry in my realm,
My realm is always full of joy;
Dear Forest, the kingdom rare to find,
The storm cannot destroy my realm,
I have strong resistance against destruction,
O Forest! The realm rare to find.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Voices of GhanaLiterary Contributions to the Ghana Broadcasting System 1955–57, pp. 223 - 225Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018