Mystery Poem

Walter Ferguson saved this love poem to our childhood homeland from his parents' papers. He does not know where it came from, who wrote it or the occasion. Anyone have any clues?

Forrest City
(On Crowley's Ridge)

This land of cotton still
Although it started long ago
When westward trekked the pioneers
To help a fledgling nation grow
They followed the trace from Eastern shores
Across the mountains rugged bar
To turn the wild into a garden
As each one followed his wiseman's star.
They cleared the forest land and tilled it,
They let the warming sunlight in
And this, our present Heritage
By their labors did begin.

Now in those early days
Tis true, there was a servitude
But lest we hasten to condemn,
Remember, there was much of good.
Life held a bit of leisure then
With a dignity in common toil
For tasks were done with human hands
And not by gasoline and oil.
There was a charm and graciousness
Which we shall never see again
With much of kindness, yes and joy
To counterbalance all the pain
And when we talk of bondage
Be it long ago or now
We are all "bound to the wheel"
With just the Master's changed somehow.

This earth is God's own footstool
At least so we are told
And he formed it and embellished it
With mountains fold on fold
He spread about the sweeping plains
The broad and high plateaus
With here and there a flatland
Through which each river flows.
From the level of the Grand Prairie
To the Eastern Mountains rise
Lay a rich and far-flung flatland
Quiescent neath the smiling skies
From this expanse to the northern hills
There seemed need of link or bridge
So this prairie He divided
With the folds of Crowley's Ridge
Here, lifted up in beauty
Beneath the smiling sun
One may look to East and West
To view the wonders God had done.