網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

1666?

Nor fancies vain at which I snatch;

But reach at things that are so high,
Beyond thy dull capacity,
Eternal substance I do see,

With which enriched I would be;

Mine eye doth pierce the heavens, and see
What is invisible to thee.

My garments are not silk nor gold

Nor such like trash which earth doth hold,
But royal robes I shall have on
More glorious than the glist'ring sun.1
My crown not diamonds, pearls, and gold,
But such as angels' heads infold.2
The City3 where I hope to dwell
There's none on earth can parallel;
The stately walls both high and strong
Are made of precious jasper stone;
The gates of pearl both rich and clear;
And angels are for porters there;
The streets thereof transparent gold,
Such as no eye did e'er behold;

A crystal river there doth run,

Which doth proceed from the Lamb's throne;
Of life there are the waters sure,

Which shall remain forever pure;
Nor sun nor moon they have no need,

For glory doth from God proceed;
No candle there, nor yet torchlight,
For there shall be no darksome night.
From sickness and infirmity

For evermore they shall be free,

Nor withering age shall e'er come there,
But beauty shall be bright and clear.
This City pure is not for thee,

For things unclean there shall not be.
If I of heaven may have my fill,
Take thou the world, and all that will."

To My Dear and Loving Husbanda

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

1. Cf. Revelation vi: 11.

2. Cf. I Peter v: 4.

3. LI. 85 to 106, describing the Holy

[blocks in formation]

City of heaven, are based on Revelation xxi: 10-27 and xxii: 1-5.

4. In the 1678 edition, posthumously

If ever wife was 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 ought 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 persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

5

ΤΟ

Contemplations

1

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.

1678

Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true,
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hue;

5

Rapt were my senses at this delectable view.

2

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, wisdom, glory, light,

That hath this under world so richly dight:

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

3

Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye,

Whose ruffling top the clouds published, the anonymous editor included this among "several other poems made by the author upon diverse occasions, *** found among her papers after her death, which she never meant should come to publick view."

5. "Contemplations" probably was not written before 1666. It is Mrs. Bradstreet's most independent work, and contains a number of her most inspired passages. In spite of its casual tone, this poem is unified. Its subject as a whole is the comparison of the life of mankind with the life of nonhuman nature as the poet observed it among the wild and wooded hills of the Merrimack, where she lived, near Andover, Massachusetts. Stanzas 1-7 recognize the beauty of external nature, and the

seemed to aspire;

10

15

sun as its generative force; stanzas 820 recall man's fall in the midst of this Eden, and the promise of his redemption and immortality; stanzas 21-28 observe the felicity of nonhuman creatures, absolved from the responsibility of moral choice first the Merrimack and its fish, second the nightingale and other birds, each representing a kind of cycle; finally, stanzas 29-33 return to the plight of man, encumbered in life by wrong choices and insecurity, whose only hope for continuity is to find his name "graved in the white stone" of redemption.

6. In Greek, "the bright one," an epithet for the sun or for the sun god, Apollo.

How long since thou wast in thine infancy?
Thy strength and stature, more thy years admire.
Hath hundred winters passed since thou wast born.
Or thousand since thou brak'st thy shell of horn?
If so, all these as nought eternity doth scorn.

4

Then higher on the glistering sun I gazed,
Whose beams was shaded by the leafy tree;
The more I looked the more I grew amazed,
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.

5

"Thou as a bridegroom from thy chamber rushes
And as a strong man, joys to run a race,7

The morn doth usher thee with smiles and blushes,
The earth reflects her glances in thy face.

Birds, insects, animals, with vegetive,8

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

6

"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!

7

"Art thou so full of glory that no eye

[blocks in formation]

Hath strength thy shining rays 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:
Admired, adored forever, be that majesty!"

8

Silent, alone, where none or saw or heard,
In pathless paths I led my wand'ring feet,
My humble eyes to lofty skies I reared,

To sing some song my mazed Muse thought meet.
My great Creator I would magnify,

7. See Psalms xix: 4-5.

8. Vegetable.

45

50

That nature had thus decked liberally:
But ah, and ah, again, my imbecility!

9

I heard the merry grasshopper then sing,
The black clad cricket bear a second part;

They kept one tune and played 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 lays?

10

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 grandsire1 great

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

11

Sometimes in Eden fair he seems to be,
Sees glorious Adam there made lord of all,
Fancies the apple dangle on the tree
That turned his sovereign to a naked thrall.
Who like a miscreant's driven from that place
To get his bread with pain and sweat of face:
A penalty imposed on his backsliding race.

12

Here sits our grandame in retired place,
And in her lap her bloody Cain2 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 lies.

13

Here Cain and Abel came to sacrifice;3
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 ways,
Hath thousand thoughts to end his brother's days,
Upon whose blood his future good he hopes to raise.

9. Thought or conception.

1. See Genesis v: 18-27. According to this account, Methuselah lived 969 years; his grandfather, Jared, 962 years.

[blocks in formation]

2. Cain is "bloody" because he was to become the first murderer; see Genesis iv: 8.

3. Cf. the source of 11, 85-105 in Genesis iv: 1-16.

[blocks in formation]

14

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 cloyed.
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 he find.

15

Who fancies not his looks now at the bar,

His face like death, his heart with horror fraught?
Nor malefactor ever felt like war

When deep despair with wish of life hath fought.
Branded with guilt and crushed with treble woes,
A vagabond to land of Nod he goes;

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

16

Who thinks not oft upon the fathers' ages?

Their long descent, how nephews sons they saw,
The starry observations of those sages,

And how their precepts to their sons were law,
How Adam sighed to see his progeny

Clothed all in his black sinful livery,

Who neither guilt nor yet the punishment could fly.

17

Our life compare we with their length of days;
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.

18

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,

100

105

110

A spring returns, and they more youthful made.

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

19

By birth more noble than those creatures all,
Yet seems by nature and by custom cursed;
No sooner born but grief and care makes fall
That state obliterate he had at first:

115

120

125

130

« 上一頁繼續 »