Anne Bradstreet and Her Time

hly American as the clearness of the sky and the pure, fine quality in the air. The wild grape, growing as profusely to-day on the Cape as two hundred years ago, is even more powerful, the subtle, de

rries were growing almost at high-tide mark. The profusion of flowers and berries had rejoiced Higginson in the previous year, their men rowing at once to "Ten Pound Island," and bringing back, he writes: "ripe

d and unexpected condition, above eighty of them being dead the winter before; and many of those alive, weak and sick; all the corn and bread amongst them all, hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight, insomuch that the remainder of a hundred and eighty servants we had the two years before sent over, coming to us for victuals to sustain them, we found ours

een unshipped at Salem and were not brought to Charlestown until July. In the meantime, "The Governor and several of the Patentees dwelt in the great house which was last year built in this town by Mr. Graves and the rest of their servants. The multitude set up cottages, booths and tents about the Town Hill. They had long passage; some of the ships were seventeen, some eighteen weeks a coming. Many people arrived

ngland in her way to heaven." There had been doubt as to the expediency of her coming, but with the wife of another explorer she had said: "Whithersoever your fatal destiny shall drive you, either by the waves of the great ocean, or by the

they had hoped might hold immediate comfort, she could not rally, and Anne Bradstreet's first experience of New Engla

nson died; his wife, the lady Arbella, of the house of Lincoln, being dead about one month before. He

tr

t her, liked i

nthrop wrote only: "Friday, July 2. My son Henry Winthrop drowned at Salem," and there is no

who could least be spared. "A sprightly and hopeful young gentleman he was," says Hubbard, and another chronicle gives more minute details. "The very day on which he went on shore in New England, he and the principal officers of the ship, walking out to a place now called by the Salemites, Northfield, to view the Indian wigwams, they sa

e mother and the young wife, whose health, like that of the

s thou shalt receive from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last ships. We have met with many sad and discomfortable things as thou shalt hear after; and the Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very ne

ade them "very pitiful one to another," and as the absolutely essential business was disposed of they ha

1630, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson and Wilson entered into a church covenant, which was signe

les Town, both for the settling the Civill Government and gathering another Church of Christ." The delay was a short one, for her name stands thirteenth on the list. Charlestown, however, held hardly more promise of quiet life than Salem. The water supply was, curiously enough

the most erratic climate the earth knows. In the search for running-water, the colonists scattered, moving from point to point, "the Governor, the Deputy-Govern

s miserable damage and spoil of provisions by sea, and divers came not so well provided as they would, upon a report, whilst they were in England, that now there was enough in New England." Even this small store was made smaller by the folly of several who ex

t was possible for Anne Bradstreet to unpack their household belongings, and seek to create some semblance of the forsaken home. But even for the Dudleys, among the richest members of the party there was a privation which shows how sharply it must have fared with the poorer portion, and Dudley wrote, nine months after their arrival, that he "thought fit to commit to memory our present

nging insects, whose attacks, however intolerable at the moment, are forgotten with the passing, and either for this reason, or from deliberate purpose, there is not a line of reference to them in any of Anne Bradstreet's writings. Scarcity of food was the sorest trouble. The Charlestown rec

ion for Thanksgiving Day being issued, "by order of the Governour and Council, directed to all the plantations, and though the stores held little reminder of holiday time in Old England, grateful hearts did not stop to weigh differences. In any case the worst was past and early spring brought the hope of substantial comfort, for the town was 'laid out in squares, the streets intersecting each other at right-angles,' and houses were built as rapidly as their small force of carpenters could work. Bradstreet's house was at the corner of 'Brayntree' and Wood Streets, the spo

g many fair structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The inhabita

ral causes seem to be in the want of warm lodging and good diet, to which Englishmen are habituated at home, and in the sudden increase of heat which they endure that are landed here in summer, the salt meats at sea having prepared their bodies thereto; for t

ound to plant, seas and rivers to fish in, a pure air to breathe in, good water to drink till wine or beer can be made; which together with the cows, hogs and goats brought hither already, may suffice for food; for as for fowl and venison, they are dainties here as well as in England. For clothes and bedding, they must bring them with them, till time and industry produce them here. In a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. And I do the more willingly use this open and plain dealing, lest other men should fall short of their expectations when they come hither, as we to our great prejudice di

changing it disastrously for traits which would seem to have been the result of increasing narrowness of religious faith rather than part of his real self. Savage writes of him: "a hardness in publick and ridgidity in private life, are too observable in his character, and even an eagerness for p

as Dudley, that

argain and must

s family, who delighted in his learning and devoted spirit, and whose

character has never been surpassed, writes of them: "Even some of the best of them, perhaps, would have seemed to us rather pragmatical and disputatious persons, with all the edges and corners of their characters left sharp, with all their opinions very definit

or Belcher had been worsted in some wordy battle, always decorously conducted, but always persistent, but these minor infelicities did not affect the main purposes of life, and the settlement grew

set within fixed limits and had nearly doubled in size through the addition in August, 1632, of the congregation of the Rev. Thomas Hooker at Chelmsford in the county of Essex, England, who had fa

sending out men to Ipswich with a view of settling there. Then for a time the question dropped, much to the satisfaction, no doubt, of Mistress Dudley and her daughter, to whom in 1633, or

reat greif to me, and cost mee many prayers and tears before I obtain

had bought the Scottish plantation near Cape Sable, and that the fort and all the amunition were delivered to them, and that the cardinal, having the managing thereof, had sent many companies already, and preparation was made to send many more the next yea

ion, desiring only "room for such life as should in the ende return them heaven for an home that passeth not away," and w

rt should be begun at Natascott, partly to be some block in an enemy's way (though it could not bar his entrance), and especially to prevent an enemy from taking that passage from us…. Also, that a plantation be begun at Agawam (being the best place in the land for ti

ild, Dorothy, had come to Anne Bradstreet. Health, always delicate and always fluctuating, was affected more seriously than usual at this time, no date being given, but the period extending over several years,

hright. But the tragedy of their early days in the colony still shadowed her. Evidently no natural voice was allowed to speak in her, and the first poem of which we have record is as destitude of any poetic flavor, as if designed for the Bay Psalm- book. As the first, h

OF SICKNESS

is su

rs old not fu

gave me

, my thread is

tal D

ye, and so mus

rev

, this word God

h prov

ll, this life'

f highe

ave all I can c

to

life but care

came fr

th waste, our t

go to

, how long can

art a b

n, but dead an

at's sp

this grace me g

y

rest I shall co

thy d

t, there's noth

tion

ain, though got

fessio

the field is wo

, I

ou envious foe t

t

ress Anne herself, who laid it away in after days in her drawer, with a smile at the metre and a sigh for the

DISTEMPE

my heart rep

ins, which bes

lumbers on m

ears that flow f

ad exhausted

dry disabled

p unto his Th

help to thos

those clouds

t i' th' vale

ul of woe, my

to the shore fr

rth of her third child, the latter part containing a touch of jealous apprehension that has been the portion of many a y

in this fading

th still our

ng, no friends

s parting blow

past is mos

ing, yet oh

ar, death may m

be thy Lot to

ignorant, ye

lines to reco

knot's untyed t

ine, who in e

ot half my day

ld, God grant t

s that well yo

red in my ob

h or virtue

e freshly in

eel'st no grief

ad, who long la

oss shall be r

ttle babes my

ove thyself,

ct from step-

thine eyes shall

sighs honor my

paper for thy

ars this last fa

.