From the pages of the Proceedings of the Fitchburg Historical Society, "The Verse Writers of Fitchburg"

A little bit of online investigation turns up a cache of Josephine E. Cragin information. I have put my archivist partner, Mr. Liberryman onto tracking down other Josephine poems. She evidently cranked them out for The Congregationalist. And we found that in the 19th century, publications entitled "The Congregationalist" are about as common as whale-bone corsets. So it might be a while until we have more Josephine verse, although I did find another poem in the Godley Cragin compendium. This is from "Proceedings" . (read at a meeting of the Society, October 17, 1898)

Another Fitchburg writer, "who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms," is Mrs. Josephine E. Cragin. The hills, the mountains, the woods, the flowers and trees, all furnish inspiring themes for her verse and song.

Mrs. Cragin, daughter of Thomas S. and Martha (Downe) Eaton, was born April 7, 1845, in West Fitch- burg, in the house where she now resides, and where she has always lived except the ten years following her marriage in 1875, during which time she resided in Royalston. Her sons are the sixth generation which has lived in the same house, now about 110 years old. From the grammar school in Fitchburg, Mrs. Cragin went to the academy in Henniker, N. H., in which place her uncle, Rev. J. M. R. Eaton, was for many years pastor.

Many of her poems have from time to time been published in the Fitchburg Sentinel, and some have been copied in other papers, notably the Congregationalist. Her salutation to Wachusett, entitled "To My Mountain," is a poem of six stanzas, three of which will show her appreciation of its never-failing inspiration:

As morn by morn, when the stars grow pale,

I turn to my window to greet the day,
I hail thee, monarch of all the vale,

Touched with the Orient's earliest ray;
Proudly uplifted, thy kingly crest,
Emblem of safety and strength and rest.

When summer twilight shadows throng,

And the pines loom dark on the eastern hill;

In the lingering daylight the sparrows' song
Gives place to the call of the whip-poor-will;

Then I almost fancy I hear the breeze

That circles among thy swaying trees.

And when sometimes the mists hang low,

And thy faintest outline I cannot trace,
Thou wert never nearer than now, I know;

Steadfast and sure thine abiding place,
A lesson of trust thou teachest me;—
I believe, though I may not always see.

Other poems, severally entitled "The Birches," "The Golden Rod," "To a Willow," "My Riches," "Under"the Snow," "Yellow Foxglove," and "My Pines," all are rhythmical and show a keen appreciation of the beautiful in nature.
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Alfred would have died three years before this was published, but it's good to know Josephine had the solace of faith. Will continue this soon...