ination to try their hands at it. They wrote memorial verses of the most intricate and ingenious sorts, sometimes carving them in stone as epitaphs. There is less verse spri

se the field,

rres, before the

oft the worse,

e the field, the

'twixt Subject

onquest got,

un, the onely

arre before th

d ill Warres, mus

d by Rule, an

'tween Subjects

e sav'd by losi

is represented a conscientious attempt to put into the service of worship a literal translation of the Psalms. The worst passages are all too frequently cited as evidenc

smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and soe have attended Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather then poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and David's poetry into eng

tted that this grave and pretentious piece of work was hardly more lovely than the name of the author. Wigglesworth was a devoted Puritan who came to America at the age of seven; graduated from Harvard College; qualified to practice medicine; and

nt with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." It was printed, probably in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1662. The poem is composed of two hundred and twenty-four eight-line stanzas. After an invocation and the announcement of the day of doom, the dead come from their graves before the throne of Christ. There the "sheep" who have been chosen for salvation are placed on the right, and the wicked "goats" come in groups to hear the judge's verdict. T

poetry. The first is that Wigglesworth wrote it consciously as a

, I am

ve adv

fool this on

his fame

my foo

e to be

tainèd wh

t I onl

in the popular "Bay Psalm Book," which had appeared some twenty years before and which was familiar to

hills lift

e shall co

doth from

n and earth

rth took up t

bold, but no

st dead

dry but no

out man

rth was trying to write a rimed summary of what everybody thought, in a meter with which everybody was familiar, and he was unqualifiedly successful. A final verdict on Michael Wigglesworth is often superciliously pr

these earnest lines Wigglesworth showed a mastery of fluent verse, a control of poetic imagery, and a gentle yearning for the souls' welfare of his parishioners which is the utterance of the pastor rat

t Maker with a

race, love an

otal work of

re with Peace and

he grim description became "the solace," as Lowell says, "of every fireside, the flicker of the pine-knots by which it was conned perhaps adding a livelier relish to its premonitions of eternal combustion." The popularity of "The Day of Doom" shows that in the very years when the Royalists were r

ober and probably dull. Mrs. Bradstreet kept house under pioneer conditions in one place after another, and when still less than forty years old had become the mother of eight children. Yet somewhere in the rare moments of her crowded days-and one can imagine how far apart those moments must have been-she put into verse "a compleat Discourse and Description of The Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year; Together with an exact Epitome of the four Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, P

particularly in the fashion of a Frenchman, Du Bartas, whose works were popular in an English translation, she wrote her quaint "quarternions," or poems on the four elements, the four seasons, the four ages, and the four "humours," and capped them all with the four monarchies. These are interesting to the modern reader only as examples of how the human mind used to w

," for example, is as poetic in thought as Bryant's "Thanatopsis," or as Lanier's "The Marshes of Glynn," to which it stands in suggestive contrast (see pp. 161 and 357). The former two are on the idea t

death it m

t wish to w

the same observation,

tal wrack of

livions curta

monuments, men

ithout a Reco

ports, their pomp's

, nor buildings,

e is grav'd in t

hine when all of

She did not go so far as to assert equality of the sexes; that was too far in advance of the age for her imagination. But she did

reeks, and wome

cedency and

in unjustly

st, and women

in all and

small acknowl

f Queen Elizabeth, a pride which she expressed in a f

ngs on earth sh

re then duly

testifie tha

off th' asper

sdom lack to

sayes not so,

better manners

w, in force no

ever hop'd for

ctors now this

t enough to m

sun did run hi

once a year, a

s time, and m

such a Ph?n

umphs, and assertions of how far she surpassed Tom

omen worth? or

e, but with our

, you have thu

dead, will vin

y our Sex is v

der now, but on

s, and thus showed how even the daughter of one Puritan governor of Massachusetts

K L

l Refe

625–1807. 1909. (A full and v

Cambridge History of Americ

Literature. Colonial Period (1607

dual A

ke of Psalmes Faithfully Translat

ble Ed

rint,

New England Society in t

lec

rly American Wri

Cyclopedia of American Li

ibrary of American Litera

the Eater: or, Meditations concerning the necessity, end and usefulness of Afflictions unto God's Children, etc.

ble Ed

of Doo

England. Proceedings of t

gra

See also M. W.,* earliest poet among Harvard gra

lec

American Poetry, p

rly American Wri

Cyclopedia of American Li

Library of American Lite

or Several Poems, compiled with great Variety of Wit and Le

ble Ed

f Odd Volu

se and Verse. J. H. Ellis, editor. 1

ther with her prose remains, and with a

hy and

Anne Bradstreet a

Literature. Colonial P

lec

American Poetry,

rly American Wri

Cyclopedia of American Li

ibrary of American Litera

AND P

meters in the "Bay Psalm B

"American Poetry," pp. 18–21) for the genuinely poetic material. Comp

er husband, and the tributary poems of Nathaniel Ward and others (Boynton, "American Poetry," pp. 1–13 pa

ual length from "The Faerie Queene" for l

(of the early nineteenth), and "The Marshes of Glynn" (of the later nineteenth) and note how far they are per