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More fool then I to look on that was lent,

As if mine own, when thus impermanent.

Farewel dear child, thou ne're fhall come to me,

But yet a while, and I shall go to thee;

Mean time my throbbing heart's chear'd up with this Thou with thy Saviour art in endless blifs.

On my dear Grand-child Simon Bradstreet,* [250] Who dyed on 16. Novemb. 1669. being but a moneth, and one day old.

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fooner come, but gone, and fal'n asleep,

Acquaintance fhort, yet parting caus'd us weep, Three flours, two scarcely blown, the last i'th' bud, Cropt by th' Almighties hand; yet is he good, With dreadful awe before him let's be mute, Such was his will, but why, let's not difpute, With humble hearts and mouths put in the dust, Let's fay he's merciful as well as juft. He will return, and make up all our loffes, And fmile again, after our bitter croffes. Go pretty babe, go reft with Sifters twain Among the bleft in endless joyes remain.

*The fourth child of her eldest son, Samuel.

A. B.

To the memory of my dear Daughter in Law,
Mrs. Mercy Bradftreet, who deceased Sept. 6.
1669. in the 28. year of her Age.*

AND live I ftill to fee Relations gone,

And yet furvive to found this wailing tone;
Ah, woe is me, to write thy Funeral Song,
Who might in reason yet have lived long,
I saw the branches lopt the Tree now fall,
I ftood fo nigh, it crufht me down withal;
My bruised heart lies fobbing at the Root,
That thou dear Son hath loft both Tree and fruit:
Thou then on Seas failing to forreign Coast;
Was ignorant what riches thou hadst lost.
But ah too foon thofe heavy tydings fly,
To strike thee with amazing mifery;
Oh how I fimpathize with thy fad heart,
And in thy griefs ftill bear a second part:
I loft a daughter dear, but thou a wife,

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Who lov'd thee more (it feem'd) then her own life.
Thou being gone, she longer could not be,
Because her Soul she'd sent along with thee.

*"Sept. () 1670 My B1 Samuel Bradstreet his wife dyed, wch was a foar affliction to him, and all his friends. May god giue us all a fanctifyed vse of this, and all other his Dispensations.”—Rev. Simon Bradstreet's Manuscript Diary. She was a daughter of William Tyng. It appears from this poem that she died soon after the premature birth of a child, which did not long survive her. This child was Anne, born Sept. 3, 1670, so that the date of the mother's death, as given in the heading, must be a misprint for 1670. See N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, vol. ix. p. 113, note ‡‡.

One week fhe only paft in pain and woe,
And then her forrows all at once did go;
A Babe fhe left before, fhe foar'd above,
The fifth and last pledg of her dying love,
E're nature would, it hither did arrive,
No wonder it no longer did survive.

So with her Children four, fhe's now a rest,
All freed from grief (I truft) among the bleft;
She one hath left, a joy to thee and me,*
The Heavens vouchfafe fhe may fo ever be.
Chear up, (dear Son) thy fainting bleeding heart,
In him alone, that caufed all this fmart;
What though thy ftrokes full fad & grievous be,
He knows it is the beft for thee and me.

A. B.

* A daughter, Mercy, born Nov. 20, 1667. Governor Bradstreet, in his will, signed Feb. 20, 1688, O. S., mentions her as one "whom I have been forced to educate and maintain at considerable charge ever since September 1670.” — Suffolk Probate Records, Lib. xi. Fol. 277-8. She afterwards married James Oliver, a physician in Cambridge. See N. E. Hist. Gen. Register, vol. viii. p. 314, and vol. ix. p. 113.

A Funeral Elogy,

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Upon that Pattern and Patron of Virtue, the truely pious, peerless & matchlefs Gentlewoman

Mrs. Anne Bradstreet,

right Panaretes,*

Mirror of Her Age, Glory of her Sex, whofe Heaven-born-Soul leaving its earthly Shrine, chofe its native home, and was taken to its Reft, upon 16th. Sept. 1672.

A

Sk not why hearts turn Magazines of paffions, And why that grief is clad in sev'ral fashions; Why She on progrefs goes, and doth not borrow The smallest respite from th' extreams of sorrow, Her mifery is got to fuch an height,

As makes the earth groan to fupport its weight,
Such ftorms of woe, so strongly have beset her,
She hath no place for worse, nor hope for better;
Her comfort is, if any for her be,

That none can fhew more caufe of grief then fhe.

* Gr. TаvúpεToç, all-virtuous.

Ask not why fome in mournfull black are clad;
The Sun is fet, there needs must be a fhade.
Ask not why every face a sadness shrowdes;
The fetting Sun ore-cast us hath with Clouds.
Ask not why the great glory of the Skye
That gilds the starrs with heavenly Alchamy,
Which all the world doth lighten with his rayes,
The Perflan God, the Monarch of the dayes;
Ask not the reason of his extafie,
Palenefs of late, in midnoon Majefty,

Why that the palefac'd Empress of the night
Difrob'd her brother of his glorious light.

Did not the language of the starrs foretel

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A mournfull Scone when they with tears did fwell? Did not the glorious people of the Skye

Seem fenfible of future mifery?

Did not the lowring heavens feem to exprefs
The worlds great lofe, and their unhappiness?
Behold how tears flow from the learned hill,
How the bereaved Nine do daily fill

The bofome of the fleeting Air with groans,
And wofull Accents, which witness their moanes.
How doe the Goddeffes of verfe, the learned quire
Lament their rival Quill, which all admire?
Could Maro's Mufe but hear her lively ftrain,
He would condemn his works to fire again.
Methinks I hear the Patron of the Spring,
The unfhorn Diety abruptly fing.

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