Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1894-06-09
ORIGINAL POETRY.
Frost burg.

Chilled and shivering in IL storm
Eastward DER the mountain top
house was blown-a town was borne,
farmers boon, the second crop.
He welcomed this, the foreign seed,
Because it came without a cost
WIapt it about with pasture feed
To thus protect it from the frost.
But soon he found it would not freeze;
He fed his fodder to the cows
And while the plant lived on to please,
To other fields he sent his plows.
And while they plowed city grew
Where once had gone the Indian trail
Where once had marched proud Braddock
through
With him who never fought to fail
Where had returned young Washington
Where evening kissed the mountain hills
Where morning caught the bIushing SUN
Where moses laughed at running rills-
Still lives the verdant "Nj"m growth,
Wherein are health and beauty found:
1t grows in frost or snow-in both,
And blooms, yet fruits beneath the ground.
Here men from foreign lands for gold
Have every day their faces BACKED,
Except when sturdy arms they fold
On Sunday-and when rates contract.
Here, first of all the region round,
Was fuel got beneath the earth;
Above, below and on the ground
Can now be found her triple worth
In early days when names were few
passer-by of pickle frown-
OF garlic breath and crimson hue,
Mistaken. named the place "Hclltown"
Perhaps he'd passed THE Shades of Death
And savage, like the mountains, grew
Perhaps he staggered from his breath
And thought that here he'd get his due.
But wiser men, while England waged
Her second war for fleeing peasant
In peaceful progress, well engaged,
Laid off the town then called Mt Pleasant
And here connecting East and West.
In verdant sheen on beauty's brow,
Lives on the pleasant town behest
And brings the future into now.
She drinks the breezes of the sky
And then the gush of purest fountain;
Were she not tainted by the rye
No grander place could grace a mountain.
Beneath the ground wherein she rests
Lies hidden force that moves the world,
And though the blackest-yet the best
That skill and art have yet unfurled.
And then in homes are hearts of men
That beat for country and for God
That in her children live again
The brightest flowers of the sod.
The mountain far its shadow casts
While sunset fingers on the crest;
And Savage echoes bugle blasts,
Of morning breaking, from the west
Here, meath the climax of the range
Between the rocks st. John and Dan
Approached through gates of toll exchange
And still well marked by Braddock's stone
Her church spires point up to the sky
Her lights electric shine at night
Her trains now up the mountain fly
And engines bring the coal to light
Near by is Clarysville so kind
To many men who fought and fell
Fond memories hang about the mind
Ofhim who, nourshed there is we'll.
Vale Summit-one time Pompey Smash
Midlothian and Borden Shaft,
Allegany and Eckhart dash
And Carlos too, to town with draft
All these are bulbules which still grow
To homes of Dilley, Frost and Beall,
Who just an hundred years ago
Were neighbors. friends and here did dwell
Who knows the love tales since then told?
Who questions there were weals and woes :?
Who thinks the winters were not cold?
Nor hearts grew warm among the SHOWS?
Thus grew the town-an hundred feet
And multiplied by twenty one
Above the tide, extends her street
And reaches just below the sun.
So high, Fort Cumberland in thought
Had deemed her but lost berg
But still she thrives,-in summers sought
And now is known as Frostburg.
And while the wigWam Indian skulks
No more in silence, sage and sad
Nor papoose maiden darkly sulks
Where now the mind in lore is clad,
Nor trout and eagle longer sway
Where deer and turkey were once wild
This town now greets the dawning day,
And laughing Nature loyes her child.
T. IEnO