Forest Runes

George Washington Sears tributes the great outdoors with a collection of poems chronicling life among nature in all its rugged glory. A committed outdoorsman Sears was most at home among the trees and hills of America's wilderness. Each poem in this anthology chronicles a different aspect of life spent camping and living in the depths of nature with only creatures for company. The author's affinity is plain to behold: he describes watching how a given animal behaves how the weather unfolds amid the forest how a camp feels like home how overarching nature's majesty is. The invigorating aspect of being outdoors is admired by the author; the mountain air tinged with the scents of trees was thought to benefit health in the 19th century. Other aspects of the book recount movements of the era; temperence from alcohol and conflicts with the Native Americans are alluded to.