A Letter to Her Husband

MY head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more,

My joy, my magazine, of earthly store,

If two be one, as surely thou and I,

How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?

So many steps, head from the heart to sever,

If but a neck, soon should we be together.

I, like the Earth this season, mourn in black,

My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,

Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,

His warmth such fridged colds did cause to melt.

My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;

Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn;

In this dead time, alas, what can I more

Than view those fruits which through thy heart I bore?

Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,

True living pictures of their father's face.

O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,

I weary grow the tedious day so long;

But when thou northward to me shalt return,

I wish my Sun may never set, but burn

Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,

The welcome house of him my dearest guest.

Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,

Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;

Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,

I here, thou there, yet both but one.

Anne Bradstreet

To My Dear and Loving Husband

IF ever two were one then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife were happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let's so perservere

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Anne Bradstreet

The Prologue

To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,

Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,

For my mean pen are too superior things:

Or how they all, or each, their dates have run;

Let poets and historians set these forth,

My obscure lines shall not so dim their work.

But when my wondering eyes and envious heart

Great Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,

Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part

'Twixt him and me that overfluent store;--

A Bartas can do what a Bartas will,

But simple I according to my skill.

From school-boys tongues no rhetoric we expect,

Nor yet a sweet consort from broken strings,

Nor perfect beauty where's a main defect:

My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings;

And this to mend, alas, no art is able,

'Cause nature made is so, irreparable.

Nor can I, like that fluent, sweet-tongued Greek

Who lisped at first, in future times speak plain;

By art he gladly found what he did seek--

A full requitl of his striving pain.

Art can do much, but this maxim's most sure:

A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue

Who says my hand a needle better fits.

A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong;

For such despite they cast on female wits,

If what I do prove well, it won't advance--

They'll say it was stolen, or else it was by chance.

But shure the ancient Greeks were far more mild,

Else of our sex why feignéd they those Nine,

And Posey made Calliope's own child?

So 'mongst the rest they placed the Arts Divine.

But this weak knot they will full soon untie--

The Greeks did naught but play the fools and lie.

Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are.

Men have precenency, and still excell.

It is but vain unjustly to wage war,

Men can do best, and women know it well.

Preëminence in all and each is yours--

Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

And oh, ye high flownquills that soar the skies,

And ever with your prey still catch your praise,

If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes,

Give thyme or parsley wreath; I ask no bays.

This mean and unrefinéd ore of mine

Will make your glistening gold but more to shine.

Anne Bradstreet

from Contemplations

WHEN I behold the heavens as in their prime,

And then the earth, though old, still clad in green,

The stones and trees insensible of time,

Nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen;

If winter come, and greenness then doth fade,

A spring returns, and they're more youthful made.

But man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid.

By birth more noble than those creatures all,

Yet seems by nature and by custom cursed--

No sooner born but grief and care make fall

That state obliterate he had at first;

Nor youth, nor strength, nor wisdom spring again,

Nor habitations long their names retain,

But in oblivion to the final day remain.

Shall I then praise the heavens, the trees, the earth,

Because their beauty and their strength last longer?

Shall I wish there or never to had birth,

Because they're bigger and their bodies stronger?

Nay, they shall darken, perish, fade, and die,

And when unmade so ever shall they lie;

But man was made for endless immortality.

Anne Bradstreet

In Memory of my Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet, who deceased June 20, 1699, being Tree Years and Seven Months Old

WITH troubled heart and trembling hand I write.

The heavens have changed to sorrow my delight.

How oft with dissappointment have I met

When I on fading things my hopes have set.

Experience might 'fore this have made me wise

To value things according to their price.

Was ever stable joy yet found below?

Or perfect bliss without mixture of woe?

I knew she was but as a withering flower,

That's here today, perhaps gone in an hour;

Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass,

Or like a shadow turning, as it was.

More fool, then, I to look on that was lent

As if mine own, when thus impermanent.

Farewell, dear child; thou ne'er shalt come to me,

But yet a while and I shall go to thee.

Meantime my throbbing heart's cheered up with this--

Thou with thy Savior art in endless bliss.

Anne Bradstreet