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Anne Bradstreet, from "A
Dialogue Between Old England and New, Concerning
their Present Troubles, Anno 1642"
![[Click on image to enlarge]](../../images/17thc/newenglandmap2.jpg) For
a woman in the early seventeenth century
to write and see her work published was a
remarkable achievement, whatever the circumstances.
But for a woman dwelling in the New World
to achieve literary success in this era would
seem almost impossible. Daily life in the
colonial settlements was a constant struggle;
books were few; learned women were regarded
with suspicion, and sometimes accused of
madness. Nevertheless, the first poet of
any quality to emerge from the American colonies
was a woman, Anne Bradstreet.
In 1630, at the age of 18,
Anne Bradstreet left England with her family
to join the new Puritan colony in Massachusetts.
As she later recalled in a letter to her
children, "I found a new world and new
manners, at which my heart rose [i.e., in
in horror]. But after I was convinced it
was the way of God, I submitted to it and
joined the church at Boston." For the
next 42 years she lived, raised a family,
and wrote in Massachusetts, never returning
to the land of her birth. In 1650, certain
members of her family contrived without her
knowledge to have her poems published in
England, where they appeared as The Tenth
Muse, Lately Sprung up in America.
![[Click on image to enlarge]](../../images/17thc/masonchildren2.jpg) Bradstreet makes little attempt
in her poetry to convey the material realities
of American life to her English readers (she
makes no mention, for instance, of the Native
Americans). Instead, she represents "New
England" as a reformed and Godly society
from which England has much to learn. In "A
Dialogue Between Old England and New, Concerning
their Present Troubles, Anno 1642," the
daughter country does not shrink from telling "Old
England" some hard truths about the
spiritual blindness and corruption that have
led her over the precipice into Civil War. "New
England" is, if anything, a little smug
in responding to her mother's woes. Yet
Bradstreet's work appears to have been
popular in Commonwealth England. Many English
Puritans must have welcomed the prospect
that their troubled and long-divided nation
could indeed be made "New" after
the fashion of the American colonies.
NEW ENGLAND
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Alas, dear mother, fairest queen and best,
With honor, wealth, and peace happy and blessed,
What ails thee hang thy head and cross thine arms,
And sit i'the dust to sigh these sad alarms?
What deluge of new woes thus overwhelm
The glories of thy ever-famous realm?
What means this wailing tone, this mournful guise?
Ah, tell thy daughter, she may sympathize. |
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OLD ENGLAND
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Art ignorant indeed of these my woes?
Or must my forced tongue these griefs disclose?
And must myself dissect my tattered state,
Which 'mazed Christendom stands wondering at?
And thou a child, a limb, and dost not feel
My fainting, weakened body now to reel?
This physic purging potion I have taken
Will bring consumption, or an ague quaking,
Unless some cordial thou fetch from high
Which present help may ease my malady.
If I decease, dost think thou shalt survive?
Or by my wasting state dost think to thrive?
Then weigh our case, if't be not justly sad,
Let me lament alone, while thou art glad. |
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NEW ENGLAND
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And thus, alas, your state you much deplore
In general terms, but will not say wherefore.
What medicine shall I seek to cure this woe,
If th' wound so dangerous I may not know?
* * * |
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OLD ENGLAND
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Well, to the matter then, there's grown of late
'Twixt king and peers a Question of State
>> note 1
Which is the chief, the Law or else the King?
One said, it's he, the other, no such thing.
'Tis said my better part in Parliament,
To ease my groaning land, showed their intent
To crush the proud, and right to each man deal.
To help the Church, and stay
>> note 2 the commonweal.
So many obstacles came in their way
As puts me to a stand what I should say;
Old customs, new prerogatives stood on,
Had they not held Law fast all had been gone;
Which by their prudence stood them in such stead
They took high Strafford lower by the head,
>> note 3
And to their Laud
>> note 4 be't spoke, they held i'th
tower
All England's Metropolitan that hour.
This done, an Act they would have passed fain,
>> note 5
No prelate should his bishopric retain;
Here tugged they hard, indeed, for all men saw
This must be done by Gospel, not by Law.
Next the militia they urged sore;
>> note 6
This was denied (I need not say wherefore).
The king, displeased, at York himself absents;
They humbly beg return, show their intents.
The writing, printing, posting to and fro,
Shows all was done, I'll therefore let it go.
But now I come to speak of my disaster:
Contention grown, 'twixt subjects and their master,
They worded it so long, they fell to blows
That thousands lay on heaps, here bleed my woes.
I that no wars so many years have known
Am now destroyed and slaughtered by mine own.
But could the field alone this strife decide,
One battle, two, or three I might abide,
But these may be beginnings of more woe.
Who knows, but this may be my overthrow.
Of pity me in this sad perturbation,
My plundered towns, my houses' devastation,
My weeping virgins, and my young men slain,
My wealthy trading fallen, my dearth of grain.
The feed-times come, but ploughman hath no hope
Because he knows not who shall in his crop.
The poor they want their pay, their children bread,
Their woeful mothers' tears unpitied.
If any pity in thy heart remain
Or any childlike love thou dost retain
For my relief do what there lies in thee
And recompense that good I've done to thee. |
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NEW ENGLAND
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Dear mother, cease complaints and wipe your eyes.
Shake off your dust, cheer up, and now arise,
You are my mother-nurse, and I, your flesh,
Your sunken bowels gladly would refresh.
Your griefs I pity, but soon hope to see
Out of your troubles much good fruit to be;
To see those latter days of hoped-for good,
Though now beclouded all with tears and blood. . . .
For sure the day of your redemption's nigh;
The scales shall fall from your long-blinded eyes,
And Him you shall adore who now despise.
The fullness of the nations in shall flow,
And Jew and Gentile to one worship go.
Then follows days of happiness and rest,
Whose lot doth fall to live therein is blessed.
No Canaanite shall then be found i'th'land,
And holiness on horse's bells shall stand.
If this make way thereto, then sigh no more.
But if at all, thou didst not see't before.
>> note 7
Farewell dear mother, rightest cause prevail,
And in a while you'll tell another tale. |
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