16th, 1672. One of the pieces in her volume bears the date of 1632, Ætatis suæ 19.

Her writings gained her great celebrity among her contemporaries. Cotton Mather is warm in her praise and declares that "her poems, divers times printed, have afforded a grateful entertainment unto the ingenious, and a monument for her memory beyond the stateliest marbles." The learned and excellent John Norton of Ipswich calls her the "mirror of her age and glory of her sex." He wrote a funeral eulogy in which he did not scruple to pun upon her name according to the fashion of the time.

"Her breast was a brave pallace, a broad street,
Where all heroic, ample thoughts did meet,
Where nature such a tenement had tane

That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane."

Many others wrote verses in her commendation, and it is much to their credit that they so justly appreciated her talents; for we must come down to a late period in the literary annals of the country before we find her equal, although her productions are not without the marks of the barbarous taste of the age. Her first essays in polite composition had but an untoward guidance from the authors most esteemed at that time. The models they presented were not adapted to promote either good taste or excellence of any sort, in writing. Du Bartas* was the favorite poet of the day, and his conceits seem to have been, in particular, the admiration of our author. She appears also to have caught something of his spirit.

6

*Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas was a French poet of the time of Henry IV. His chief work was a poem on the creation, stuffed with absurdities. He called the head the lodging of the understanding, the eyes the twin stars, the nose the gutter' or chimney,' the teeth a double palisade used as a mill to the open throat. This poem was as much admired as is now Pollok's Course of Time, and in five or six years passed through thirty editions. It was translated into English. The earliest writings of New England abound with allusions to this author,

The contents of her volume are a poem upon the Four Elements, upon the Four Humors in Man's Constitution, upon the Four Ages of Man, and the Four Seasons of the Year. In these we are presented with personifications of Fire, Air, Earth and Water; Choler, Blood, Melancholy and Phlegm; and Childhood, Youth, Middle Age and Old Age, each of whom comes forward with an address in which its peculiar excellences are set forth. Then follows a versified history of the Four Monarchies of the World, and some shorter pieces, one of which, for its great merit, we shall extract; it shows Mrs Bradstreet to have possessed genuine poetical feeling. This poem is entitled

CONTEMPLATIONS.

SOME time now past in the Autumnal Tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head.

Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted, but was true
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew,
Wrapt were my senses at this delectable view.

I wist not what to wish, yet sure thought I,

If so much excellence abide below;

How excellent is He, that dwells on high!

Whose power and beauty by his works we know.

Sure he is goodness, wisdome, glory, light,

That hath this under world so richly dight:

More heaven than earth was here no winter and no night.

Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye,

Whose ruffling top the clouds seem'd to aspire;
How long since thou wast in thine infancy?
Thy strength, and stature, more thy years admire.
Hath hundred winters past since thou wast born?
Or thousand since thou brak'st thy shell of horn,
If so, all these as nought, eternity doth scorn.

Then higher on the glistering sun I gaz'd,
Whose beams were shaded by the leavie tree,
The more I look'd, the more grew amaz'd,
And softly said, what glory 's like to thee?
Soul of this world, this Universe's eye,

No wonder, some made thee a deity;

Had I not better known, (alas) the same had I.

Thou as a bridegroom from thy chamber rushest,
And as a strong man, joyes to run a race,
The morn doth usher thee, with smiles and blushes,
The earth reflects her glances in thy face.
Birds, insects, animals with vegetive,

Thy heart from death and dulness doth revive:
And in the darksome womb of fruitful nature dive.

Thy swift annual, and diurnal course,
Thy daily straight, and yearly oblique path,
Thy pleasing fervor, and thy scorching force,
All mortals here the feeling knowledge hath.
Thy presence makes it day, thy absence night,
Quaternal seasons caused by thy might:

Hail creature, full of sweetness, beauty and delight.

Art thou so full of glory, that no eye
Hath strength, thy shining rayes once to behold?
And is thy splendid throne erect so high?
As to approach it, can no earthly mould.
How full of glory then must thy Creator be,
Who gave this bright light luster unto thee!
Admir'd, ador'd for ever, be that Majesty.

Silent alone, where none or saw, or heard,
In pathless paths I lead my wandering feet,
My humble eyes to lofty skyes I rear'd

To sing some song, my mazed Muse thought meet.
My great Creator I would magnifie,
That nature had, thus decked liberally :
But Ah, and Ah, again, my imbecility!

I heard the merry grasshopper then sing,
The black clad cricket, bear a second part,
They kept one tune, and plaid on the same string,
Seeming to glory in their little art.

Shall creatures abject, thus their voices raise ?
And in their kind resound their maker's praise:
Whilst I as mute, can warble forth no higher layes.

When present times look back to ages past,
And men in being fancy those are dead,
It makes things gone perpetually to last,

And calls back months and years that long since fled.

It makes a man more aged in conceit,

Than was Methuselah, or 's grand-sire great;

While of their persons and their acts his mind doth treat.

Sometimes in Eden fair he seems to be,

Sees glorious Adam there made Lord of all,
Fancyes the Apple, dangle on the Tree,
That turn'd his Sovereign to a naked thral.
Who like a miscreant's driven from that place,
To get his bread with pain, and sweat of face:
A penalty impos'd on his backsliding race.

Here sits our Grandame in retired place,
And in her lap, her bloody Cain new born,
The weeping Imp oft looks her in the face,
Bewails his unknown hap, and fate forlorn;
His mother sighs, to think of Paradise,
And how she lost her bliss, to be more wise,
Believing him that was, and is, Father of lyes.

Here Cain and Abel come to sacrifice,
Fruits of the earth, and fatlings each do bring;
On Abel's gift the fire descends from skies,
But no such sign on false Cain's offering;
With sullen hateful looks he goes his wayes.
Hath thousand thoughts to end his brothers dayes,
Upon whose blood his future good he hopes to raise.

There Abel keeps his sheep, no ill he thinks,
His brother comes, then acts his fratricide,
The Virgin Earth, of blood her first draught drinks,
But since that time she often hath been cloy'd;
The wretch with ghastly face and dreadful mind,
Thinks each he sees will serve him in his kind,

Though none on Earth but kindred near then could be find.

Who fancyes not his looks now at the barr,

His face like death, his heart with horror fraught,
Nor male-factor ever felt like warr,

When deep despair, with wish of life hath sought,
Branded with guilt, and crusht with treble woes,
A vagabond to Land of Nod he goes,

A city builds, that wals might him secure from foes.

Who thinks not oft upon the Fathers ages.
Their long descent, how nephew's sons they saw,
The starry observations of those Sages,

And how their precepts to their sons were law

How Adam sigh'd to see his progeny,
Clothed all in his black sinfull livery,

Who neither guilt, nor yet the punishment could fly.

Our Life compare we with their length of dayes,
Who to the tenth of theirs doth now arrive?
And though thus short, we shorten many ways,
Living so little while we are alive

;

In eating, drinking, sleeping, vain delight,
So unawares comes on perpetual night,

And puts all pleasures vain unto eternal flight.

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 do fade,

A Spring returns, and they more youthfull 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 custome 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 their, or never to had birth,

Because they're bigger, and their bodyes stronger?
Nay, they shall darken, perish, fade and dye,
And when unmade, soever shall they lye,
But man was made for endless immortality.

Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm
Close sate I by a goodly River's side,

Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm;
A lonely place, with pleasures dignified.

I once that lov'd the shady woods so well,

Now thought the rivers did the trees excell,

And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell.

While on the stealing stream I fixt mine
eye,
Which to the long'd-for Ocean held its course,
I markt nor crooks, nor rubs that there did lye
Could hinder aught, but still augment its force :