To Plainfield, Conn. On Her Two-Hundredth Anniversary

Two hundred years of storm and calm,

   In winter's snow and summer's sun,

   Along thy hills and vales have run

The varied notes of nature's psalm.

 

The red men were thy primal flock,

   Free wanderers of the solemn woods,

   Who made their ancient solitudes

The heaven of their Manitowock.

 

Rude types of their barbaric skill,

   On intervale and sandy plain

   Flint axe and arrow points remain,

In childhood sought, and treasured still.

 

On yonder hill-side looking down

   To where the iron "fire-steed" neighs,

   Bergan my life and childish lays

That grew despite the muses' frown.

 

Behind the stately plough I learned 

   The lore that made thy sturdy sons

   The elect of freedom's champions,

By whom the tyrant's yoke was spruned.

 

I roved thy wooded hills as free

   As the lithe Indian, and made love

   To rock and stream and chestnut grove,

And there was peace 'twixt thee and me.

 

And there is peace in all thy bounds,

   O land of wood-crowned hill and plain

   Of biullowy fields of golden grain,

And labor with its myriad sounds.

 

The hum of spindles and the roar

   Of rushing engines fill the air,

   Once rent by Indian war-whoops where

The river laves Wauregan's shore.

 

And looking down your elm-arcades,

   In fancy ye may see, below, 

   The glittering hosts of Rochambeau,

Our struggling nation's gallant aids.

 

With two broad centuries on thy brow,

   O thou whose green hills saw my birth,

   I bless thy children, and the earth,

Their foster-nurse of old as now.

 

Not cradles only, but their peers—

   Low graves, love-haunted, bind me still,

   Leige-man, to ever vale and hill,

That even affection's self endears.

 

And purer than of orient pearl,

   An angel's flesh,—resigned with tears

   That will not dry for all these years—

The earth-robe of our baby girl.

 

Yet other kindred in thy care

   Have left, anear, their mortal clay;

   And haply at no distant day

Thy alien son may join them there!