The printing of this edition of The Poems and Mrs A Pro s e Remains of . nne Bradstreet was Ma 1 8 A begun in y , 9 5 , and completed in pril , 1 8 9 7 . Twelve copies on Japan paper, and one hundred and thirty -two copies on hand -made paper, were printed, and numbered respectively from I to 1 2 and from 1 3 to This copy is No . ()l3 NNE E T EET MRS . A RA DS R (16 12- 167 2) TOGETHER WITH HER P ROSE REMAINS WITH AN INTROD UCTION B Y CHARLES EL IOT NORTON ' THE D UOD ECIMOS MD CCCXCV II 1 8 Copyright , 9 7 , by The Duodecimos . Th e D: Vm u l Pass e . EN CONT TS . U C E INTROD TION, by Charles liot Norton EDITOR ’ S NOTE xxxiii T H E M OF M R S E POE S . BRADSTR ET Prefatory verses by admirers To her most honored father I h Th A n Elegy upon Sir Philip Sidney In Honor of Du Bartas In Honor of Queen Elizabeth David ’ s Lamentation To the Memory of My Father A n Epitaph on My Mother 7 Contemplations n ”i g The Flesh and the Spirit The Vanity of 511 Worldly Things x The Author to her Book Cofltfi m Poems upon divers occasions Upon a fit of sickness Upon some distemper of body \J / Before the birth of one of her children To my dear and loving husband A letter to her husband Another Another v To her father , with some erses x In reference to her children In memory of Elizabeth Bradstreet In memory of Anne Bradstreet On Simon Bradstreet To the memory of Mercy Bradstreet rs A A funeral elegy upon M . nne Bradstreet Occasional Meditations For my dear son Simon Bradstreet Meditations divine and moral To my dear children “B ” y night, when others soundly slept For deliverance from a fever From another sore fit . Deliverance from a fit of fainting Meditations when my soul hath been refreshed U s n E pon my o Samuel his going for ngland . For the restoration of my dear husband Upon my daughter Hannah Wiggin On my son ’ s return out of England Upon my husband his going into England In my solitary hours For the letters I recei ved from my husband ’ For my husband s safe arri val “ In silent night, when rest I took “ ” v : A s 5 weary pilgrim , now at rest U A ILL STR TIONS . ro ntis ie ce Anne Bradstreet F p . 1 Governor Simon Bradstreet opp . v i Chief Justice Joseph Dudley Chief Justice Paul Dudley The Bradstreet Residence Hallway of the Bradstreet House Rev . John Cotton John Winthrop John Eliot Sir Philip Sidney William Sallust Du Bartas Extract from the Boston News Letter o to n Win o and Eli o are ins er e ere as co n em o aneo u s C t , thr p, t t d h t p r au an e ati ve u i ans tho rs d r pres ent P r t . M MR S A T H E E . E A EE PO S OF NN BR DSTR T . W hen it was proposed to me, not long since, to write an introduction to the edition of the poems of , ” Mrs A “ . nne Bradstreet which The Duodecimos e w re about to issue , many reasons compelled me to decline the task . The request , however, led me to take up once more , after an interval of many years , “ ” M Mrs the poems of the tenth use, as . Bradstreet was termed on the title -page of the first edition of her verses , and I turned to the elaborate and excellent Mr edition of them published, thirty years ago , by . E A John Harvard llis . fter looking them through, I E came on the legy upon the truly pious , peerless, ” Mrs A and matchless gentlewoman . nne Bradstreet, n N writte by my ancestor the Reverend John orton , of Hingham . I had quite forgotten its existence , and, on reading it, it struck me that there would be some o f thing quaint appropriateness in my writing, at this vi i ' W o Mrs Am e B r a drtr eet viii Tba r i tzflgr f . long interval , in regard to her whose praises he had sung , and that the act would not be without a certain A nd piety toward my ancestor . , further, I reflected , that as I could trace my descent in one line directly Mrs D . from Governor Thomas udley , the father of Bradstreet, and as the portraits of her brother, Gov erno r Joseph Dudley, and his wife , looked down on sat s he me every day while I at breakfast and dinner, , as my aunt many times removed, might not unjustly have a claim upon me for such token of respect to her M memory as had been asked of me . oved by these pious considerations , I revised my decision I am sorry that I cannot speak with admiration ’ Mr N of my venerable ancestor . John orton s verses , but their defects may , in part at least, be excused by his youth at the time when they were written . Mrs . B 1 6 2 tw o radstreet died in 7 , hundred and -five E twenty years ago , and if the legy were written at that time (it first appeared in the second edition 1 6 8 Mr of her poems in 7 ) . Norton was in his - twenty second year, and had graduated at Harvard H is the year before . verses are artificial in senti ment, extravagant in expression , and cumbered with E n pedantry . The legy co tains , indeed, two tolerably CHI EF J USTIC E JOSEPH D UDLE Y . Half-brother of Anne (D udley)Bradstreet . Fro m the o rigi nal painti ng o wned by harles Elio t No rto n am rid e ass . P ro fess o r C , C b g , M be Wf i rin : o rs d nne B r a drtr eet x T g f M . m test of ti e , and it is not their poetic merit which will an lead y one at the present day to read her verses . The little that is known of her life has been often told . She and her husband were alike of gentle blood 1 6 1 2 and gentle breeding . She was born in , and married when only sixteen years old to a youth of promise nine years older than herself. Two years Mr 1 6 0 . later, in 3 , they accompanied her father , D s o Thomas udley , distinguished in the later history M of the assachusetts colony , on the memorable voy age o f Winthrop and his companions in the L a dy r i n N W D as A el/ . w ext after inthrop , udley the fore o f most man the emigration , and the young Bradstreet “ ” w as already one of the assistants of the Massachu setts Company, and seems to have been held in respect for his o wn character, as well as for his relationship Mrs to one of the leaders of the party . Of . Brad street during the hard early years of the Mass achu setts settlement nothing is recorded, and in her poems s he tells us nothing of the events of her life at this ' dnd eed M a e and ~ time . It is , , a striking fact g to her ‘ f ’ r o d r f a nd n a critic ism m o n i t as w o ll i t p fi p , that in all E there is scarcely a reference to New ngland , and no word from which one might gather that it had been I ntr odu ctory xi W . New f s o written in the orld at a time so di ficult, s o - W ho interesting , strange to these new comers Old? All her allusions , her figures of speech , her illus tra ti o ns are drawn from the old worn -out literary No New E stock . ngland bird sings in her pages W W W no Ne w England flower seems to have been dear to her ; no incident or aspect of life peculiar to New England is described or even N v referred to . othing can be gathered from her erses in regard to the modes of existence or the social experience of the first emigrants to this “ uncouth ” corner of the world, as Governor Belcher later t e called it . Of all those hings about which w should be curious and interested to hear there is not a word . It is noteworthy ho w little of poetic sentiment the New Englanders displayed during the fir st century of w as the settlement . There abundance of religious feeling ; abundance of domestic sentiment ; a quantity of verse w as written ; but in the whole mass there is scarcely one line instinct with imagination , and few that show a play of fancy or sustained liveliness of humor . The verses for the most part seem to partake \ of the ru gged character of the land which the English and born settlers were mastering , and if every now W i Anne B r a ds tr eet Tbe r i t ng; of Mrr . then there be a gleam of humor, as in some of the Mr N W verses of the eccentric Reverend . athaniel ard , of which an illustration is afforded by the commenda tory piece which he prefixed to the first edition of ’ Mrs — if .