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    To My Husband and Other Poems
    To My Husband and Other Poems
    To My Husband and Other Poems
    Ebook111 pages57 minutes

    To My Husband and Other Poems

    By Anne Bradstreet

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    About this ebook

    The daughter of one colonial governor and the wife of another, Anne Dudley Bradstreet (1612–72) was also a skilled and accomplished writer, whose collection of poetry, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, was the first volume of original verse written in the colonies. In addition to being America's first poet, she was also, in great likelihood, the first professional woman poet in the English language.
    This collection of poetry, selected from a number of her works, discloses the thoughts of a remarkably sensitive and well-educated woman. Exhibiting great range and beauty, the poems encompass everything from lyric verses addressed to her husband and children and a formal elegy in honor of Queen Elizabeth I to loving epitaphs honoring her deceased mother, father, and grandchildren.
    Grouped according to category (love, home life, religious meditations, dialogues, and lamentations), the poems not only exhibit Anne Bradstreet’s wide learning but also reveal the influence of Montaigne, Homer, Raleigh, Sidney, Spenser, and other poets. Sure to be welcomed by students and teachers, this collection is also important for the light it sheds on the cares, concerns, and roles of colonial women.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJul 6, 2012
    ISBN9780486159003
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      Book preview

      To My Husband and Other Poems - Anne Bradstreet

      I / LOVE POEMS

      To my Dear and loving Husband

      If ever two were one, then surely we.

      If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;

      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 recompence.

      Thy love is such I can no way repay,

      The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.

      Then while we live, in love lets so persever,

      That when we live no more, we may live ever.

      As loving Hind

      As loving Hind that (Hartless) wants her Deer,

      Scuds through the woods and Fern with harkning ear,

      Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry,

      Her dearest Deer, might answer ear or eye;

      So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss,

      A dearer Dear (far dearer Heart) than this,

      Still wait with doubts, and hopes, and failing eye,

      His voice to hear, or person to discry.

      Or as the pensive Dove doth all alone

      (On withered bough) most uncouthly bemoan

      The absence of her Love, and loving Mate,

      Whose loss hath made her so unfortunate:

      Ev’n thus doe I, with many a deep sad groan

      Bewail my turtle true, who now is gone,

      His presence and his safe return, still wooes,

      With thousand dolefull sighs and mournfull Cooes.

      Or as the loving Mullet, that true Fish,

      Her fellow lost, nor joy nor life do wish,

      But lanches on that shore, there for to dye,

      Where she her captive husband doth espy.

      Mine being gone, I lead a joyless life,

      I have a loving phere, yet seem no wife:

      But worst of all, to him can’t steer my course,

      I here, he there, alas, both kept by force:

      Return my Dear, my joy, my only Love,

      Unto thy Hinde, thy Mullet and thy Dove,

      Who neither joyes in pasture, house nor streams,

      The substance gone, O me, these are but dreams.

      Together at one Tree, oh let us brouze,

      And like two Turtles roost within one house,

      And like the Mullets in one River glide,

      Let’s still remain but one, till death divide.

      e9780486159003_i0003.jpg

      Phœbus make haste

      Phœbus make haste, the day’s too long, be gone,

      The silent night’s the fittest time for moan;

      But stay this once, unto my suit give ear,

      And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere:

      (And if the whirling of thy wheels don’t drown’d

      The woful accents of my doleful sound),

      If in thy swift Carrier thou canst make stay,

      I crave this boon, this Errand by the way,

      Commend me to the man more lov’d than life,

      Shew him the sorrows of his widdowed wife;

      My dumpish thoughts, my groans, my brakish tears

      My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears,

      And if he love, how can he there abide?

      My Interest’s more than all the world beside.

      He that can tell the starrs or Ocean sand,

      Or all the grass that in the Meads do stand,

      The leaves in th’ woods, the hail or drops of rain,

      Or in a corn-field number every grain,

      Or every mote that in the sun-shine hops,

      May count my sighs, and number all my drops:

      Tell him, the countless steps that thou dost trace,

      That once a day, thy Spouse thou mayst imbrace;

      And when thou canst not treat by loving mouth,

      Thy rayes afar, salute her from the south.

      But for one moneth I see no day (poor soul)

      Like those far scituate under the pole,

      Which day by day long wait for thy arise,

      O how they joy when thou dost light the skyes.

      O Phœbus, hadst thou but thus long from thine

      Restrain’d the beams of thy beloved shine,

      At thy return, if so thou could’st or durst

      Behold a Chaos blacker than the first.

      Tell him here’s worse than a confused matter,

      His little world’s a fathom under water,

      Nought but the fervor of his ardent beams

      Hath power to dry the torrent of these streams.

      Tell him I would say more, but cannot well,

      Oppressed minds, abruptest tales do tell.

      Now post with double speed, mark what I say,

      By all our loves conjure him not to stay.

      A Letter to her Husband, absent upon Publick employment

      My head, my heart, mine Eyes, my life, nay more,

      My joy, my Magazine of earthly store,

      If two be one, as surely thou and I,

      How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lye ?

      So many steps, head from the heart to sever

      If but a neck, soon should we be together:

      I like the earth this season, mourn in black,

      My Sun is gone so far in’s Zodiack,

      Whom whilst I ’joy’d, nor storms, nor frosts I felt,

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