Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FRAMINGHAM, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FRAMINGHAM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fair to the red man, was framingham
Last Line: With virtue, and valor, and beauty, gem!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Anniversaries; Framingham, Massachusetts


FAIR to the Red Man, was Framingham
When deer were plenty, and salmon swam
By Merrimack west to Sudbury River
And the brooks that wind where the tall reeds quiver —
Up from the sea to the lakes that lie
Pleasant and cool the pine woods by;
When the bowery streams were the beaver's right,
And the blue was the eagle's sunward flight,
And only the wind, or the wolf, or the loon,
Broke the silence at night or noon.
Ah well! nor hunter, nor chief, nor maid,
Is left by the falls or the forest glade;
Their weirs, their cornfields, their paths, their graves,
Are gone from the meadows the river laves,
Yet Waushakum, Cochituate, Nobscot Hill,
Speak of their old Dominion still!

A resolute, reverent race were they
Who up from the coast-line made their way
To the woods and meads of Cochituate —
Strong of purpose and stern as fate.
For present good and for future bliss —
An eye to both worlds — they wrought in this,
Building the meeting-house, bridging the ford,
Fighting the Indians and fearing the Lord.
And bitter the deeps they sometimes crossed:
'Imprimis — a wife and nine children lost,
Murdered and captured,' the record ran
Of Thomas Eames when the town began,
And fair Mount Wayte, with its Christian fame,
Heard the war-whoop and saw the flame.
Yet the hamlets here in the wilderness
Were a refuge to those in storm and stress.
Rough was the road to Salem then,
But hunted women and helpless men
Fled through the forest's darksome door
From the witchcraft horror that swayed the shore,
And Salem End was a nook of peace
Where from courts and prisons they found release.

Good Parson Swift, on the sunny swell
Where stood his meeting-house, slumbers well;
Yet they say, at midnight who ventures there
May hear his voice, in appeal or prayer,
Ring out as it did when the dead and he
Were parish and preacher, anciently,
And a psalm float by;—but the sounds they hear
Are the sighs of the wind in a dreaming ear,
For pastor and flock, on the sunny swell
Where stood the first meeting-house, slumber well.

And now two hundred years have fled;
But the men of Framingham, living and dead
Have been true to country and state and town
Winning, in war and peace, renown;
And her sons in Manila and Cuba, still
Are brave as the soldiers of Bunker Hill;
And her daughters as loyal, through weal and woe,
As the wives and mothers of long ago.
Fairer and nobler is Framingham
Than in far-off days when the salmon swam
Up from the sea to the lakes that lie
Pleasant and cool the pine-woods by;
For the toil of two centuries makes, at their close,
The wilderness bloom and rejoice as the rose;
With the fortunate 'South' to a city growing,
And traffic and life through its highways flowing;
With the 'Centre' charming in lawns and leas,
For homes and river and stately trees;
With busy, beautiful Saxonville,
Queen of the falls, the lake, the mill —
A region of loveliness' thrift and cheer
Is the town in its bright two hundredth year!
And while Cochituate mirrors the sky
And over Waushakum the west winds sigh —
While her churches rise and her hearth-fires glow,
In strength and honor may Framingham grow,
And forever, the Bay State's diadem,
With virtue, and valor, and beauty, gem!





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