Won't you travel with me on the highway of life?
Down the
road of Forgive and Forget
That leads to the Land of Beginning Again
Where
old friends are better friends yet.

I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning
Again
Where all of our mistakes, and all of our heartaches,
And all of our
poor, selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the
door
And never be put on again.

I wish we might come on it all unaware,
Like a hunter who finds a lost
trail
And I wish that the one whom our blindness had done
The greatest
injustice of all,
Could be at the gates like an old friend
Who waits for
the comrade he's gladdest to hail?

We'd find all the things we intended to do
But forgot and remembered too
late
Little praises unspoken, little promises broken,
And all the thousand
and one little duties neglected
That might have perfected the day for one
less fortunate.

It wouldn't be possible not to be kind in that
Land of Beginning
again
For the ones we misjudged, and the ones we grudged
Their moments of
victory here
Would find in the grasp of our loving hand clasp
More than
penitent lip could explain.

And what had seemed hardest, we'd find had been best,
And what had seemed
loss, had been gain.
For there isn't a thing that will not take wing
If
you face it and laugh it away.
And I think that the laughter is most what
we're after
In that Land of Beginning Again

So I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of
Beginning Again
Where all of our mistakes and all of our heartaches
And
all of our poor, selfish grief,
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at
the door
And never be put on again.

~By Louise Fletcher Tarkington