1666? Nor fancies vain at which I snatch; But reach at things that are so high, With which enriched I would be; Mine eye doth pierce the heavens, and see My garments are not silk nor gold Nor such like trash which earth doth hold, A crystal river there doth run, Which doth proceed from the Lamb's throne; Which shall remain forever pure; For glory doth from God proceed; For evermore they shall be free, Nor withering age shall e'er come there, For things unclean there shall not be. To My Dear and Loving Husbanda If ever two were one, then surely we. 1. Cf. Revelation vi: 11. 2. Cf. I Peter v: 4. 3. LI. 85 to 106, describing the Holy 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, My love is such that rivers cannot quench, 5 ΤΟ Contemplations 1 Some time now past in the autumnal tide, 1678 Their leaves and fruits seemed painted, but was true, 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? 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? 4 Then higher on the glistering sun I gazed, Had I not better known, alas, the same had I. 5 "Thou as a bridegroom from thy chamber rushes The morn doth usher thee with smiles and blushes, Birds, insects, animals, with vegetive,8 Thy heart from death and dullness doth revive: 6 "Thy swift annual and diurnal course, Thy daily straight and yearly oblique path, Hail, creature full of sweetness, beauty, and delight! 7 "Art thou so full of glory that no eye Hath strength thy shining rays once to behold? As to approach it can no earthly mould? 8 Silent, alone, where none or saw or heard, To sing some song my mazed Muse thought meet. 7. See Psalms xix: 4-5. 8. Vegetable. 45 50 That nature had thus decked liberally: 9 I heard the merry grasshopper then sing, They kept one tune and played on the same string, Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise, 10 When present times look back to ages past, 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, 12 Here sits our grandame in retired place, 13 Here Cain and Abel came to sacrifice;3 9. Thought or conception. 1. See Genesis v: 18-27. According to this account, Methuselah lived 969 years; his grandfather, Jared, 962 years. 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. 14 There Abel keeps his sheep, no ill he thinks, 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? When deep despair with wish of life hath fought. 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, And how their precepts to their sons were law, 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; And though thus short we shorten many ways, In eating, drinking, sleeping, vain delight. 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, 115 120 125 130 |